High Points – Guadalupe Peak
The Great Plains may be relatively flat in places, but it is not a lowland. It is high country. If you were to start at, say, the Mississippi River and work your way westward, you would be on a gradually upward trending slope, although you would never really notice it due to locally rolling terrain […]
Center for Great Plains Studies
I have mentioned it a few times in this blog, but for anyone interested in tapping into a deeper knowledge of the Great Plains there is the Center for Great Plains Studies (CGPS) in Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s an academic arm of the University of Nebraska that specializes in research related to the Great Plains. The […]
Dances with Wolves
Let’s return to films for a moment to cover arguably the most popular and well received film to have the Great Plains as a backdrop – Dances with Wolves. In fact, the setting becomes almost as much of a character in the film as the actual characters. The film was shot mostly in South Dakota […]
NEW – Oregon Desert Trail
This is awesome! We’re not quite ready to have a thru-hike of the GPT yet, but it’s inspiring to know there’s another arid country long distance trail being planned (and hiked!) out there.
Please Welcome . . . ABE
As some of you may recall, our mascot bison who appears on the logo has a name – ABE, which is an acronym that stands for American Bison Extraordinaire. For the past week, I’ve been involved in a project to create an interactive (old school low-tech) verson of ABE that can be used at events. […]
The Great Plains – The Most American Landscape
Happy 4th of July from the Great Plains Trail! On this most American of holidays, it’s time to recognize (and brag just a bit) that the most American of landscapes is indeed the Great Plains. I will expand on this idea briefly so you can get back to grillin’ and chillin’ in your neighbor’s backyard. […]
The Remaining National Grasslands
To wrap up National Grasslands Week, here’s a really quick look at the remaining eight Great Plains National Grasslands. Most of them fall outside the scope of where the Great Plains Trail will be, but they are important pieces of the larger Great Plains ecosystem nonetheless. I will note here that there are three other […]
Kiowa National Grassland
We’ll finish the work week with a look at Kiowa National Grassland in New Mexico. I visited Kiowa NG for the first time last year, and I was totally blown away, particularly by the western unit and the Canadian River Canyon (a.k.a. Mills Canyon) which is one of the finest redrock canyons I’ve ever seen. […]
Pawnee and Comanche National Grasslands
Today we feature the two National Grasslands of Colorado – Pawnee in the northeast and Comanche in the southeast. Pawnee National Grassland has two main sections and totals about 200,000 acres. Pawnee NG has been discussed several times on this blog with its main features being two enormous buttes that rise above the surrounding […]
Oglala and Buffalo Gap National Grasslands
Today’s featured National Grasslands are Oglala in Nebraska and Buffalo Gap in South Dakota. These are perhaps my favorite in that I find them endlessly fascinating with stunning scenery. They remain sparsely popualated with several towns that could qualify as ghost towns or nearly ghost towns. They are full of enticing hills, dramatic buttes, and […]
Dakota Prairie Grasslands
Today’s featured National Grassland, Dakota Prairie, is actually four grasslands in both North Dakota and South Dakota operated by one agency. The four different units include three in North Dakota – Little Missouri National Grassland, Cedar River National Grassland, and Sheyenne National Grassland as well as Grand River National Grassland in South Dakota. The bold […]
National Grasslands Week – June 23-29
This is National Grasslands Week. There are 20 National Grasslands nationwide and almost all of them are in the Great Plains. National Grasslands are administered by the Department of Agriculture, which is also responsible for National Forests. All this week, I will be posting overviews of some of the Grasslands that may exist near you. […]
