Elk City, Ok to Hartley Tx

[moparguy]

Getting ready to head out on the annual hunting trip to Colorado. Anyone able to comment on the road conditions (as in what shape the highway's in) along this route: Exit I-40 at Elk City, then west on 6 to Sweetwater through Wheeler, Pampa, north at Borger, west at Stinnett to Dumas and on to Hartley.

At Hartley it's back on our regular route to Raton NM and on to elk camp in Colorado.

We normally just take I-40 to Amarillo, get off at Bushland Tx and work our way north. I'd like to see some different scenery but not at the expense of driving beat-up two lane for a couple hundred miles. It looks like on the route above we'd be driving through oil country and I'm familiar with how the patch rigs and chew up asphalt. My hope is the roads have been repaired if the patch did do damage.

Thanks for any input.

Ron

 

[GrantP]

I have some extended family in Borger, last time I was up there all the roads were good. In my opinion TX in general takes great care of their roads. Now whether the route your suggesting is "scenic", no. Just different from I-40.

Good luck on the hunt!

 

[moparguy]

Thanks Grant, I do appreciate the report. I agree on Texas taking care of their roads, they're some of the best I've driven on. Now the Oklahoma portion, not so sure about.

Hopefully someone that's sorta local will chime in.

 

[moparguy]

Well, we did take the subject route. Great choice since the roads were good, speed limits were often 70 to 75mph (although we only ran 65-67mph max) and a few small towns for fuel and food if needed. Highly recommend this path to anyone that can use it, likely saved an hour over our old route of going though Amarillo and heading north on Tx Farm Road 1061.

RR

 

[GrantP]

Glad the road trip went well. The big question is how did the hunt go?

 

[moparguy]

Glad the road trip went well. The big question is how did the hunt go?

No blood for me. I was playing with a little raghorn and when I rounded a stand of spruce at the head of a meadow, a BIG 6x6 was already at light speed and about to hit Warp5. I had the 300 Short Mag at high port, was on him in milliseconds and cross hairs could only find gut and hind quarter. Their was no shot, front shoulder was already behind cover at about 50 yds. and he wasn't stopping for a curiosity look. Can still see him.

Little Bro got a decent 5x6. We hunt public ground and are at about 60% bull kills over 20 yrs in a unit that has a bull kill ratio of 16 %.

Already looking forward to next fall.

 

[jhenderson]

Sounds like you got all the fun out of the trip anyway. Once you pull the trigger the funds all done and the work begins.