The Wildcat Hills
South of the Black Hills and just south of the town of Scottsbluff, Nebraska is another distinct range of topographical relief on the Great Plains. This is the Wildcat Hills, an un-eroded remnant of higher lands that now rises above the surrounding terrain by as much as 1,000 feet. The highest “peak” of the range, […]
Great Plains Article in Harper’s
I hate to once again interrupt my broad survey of Great Plains topographical tidbits, but I wanted to take a moment to alert everyone about a very interesting article which just appeared in the July 2012 edition of Harper’s Magazine. It’s a look at the future of agriculture on the Great Plains under the ominous […]
Indiegogo
I promise to return to topographical features of the Great Plains very soon, but I wanted to post an update about our latest project. We have launched a small fundraising campaign with an online source called Indiegogo. They help organizations and even individuals raise funds for various things from Art to Zebras. Our specific project […]
The Winner Is . . .
A BIG thanks goes out to all of you who submitted an entry to the “Name the Buffalo Contest!” The Great Plains Trail Alliance really appreciates the effort and creativity that was poured into the naming of our “mascot” on our logo. We had some great submissions from comments on the blog as well as […]
Paha Sapa
When it comes to mountains on the Great Plains, the Black Hills of South Dakota take center stage. No other major landform of the plains has anywhere near the influence that the Black Hills has on the region’s geography, culture, and history. They were sacred to native tribes of the past (the Lakota called them […]
The Mountains of North Dakota
A good friend of mine once joked about North Dakota that the sign at the entrance read: “Welcome to North Dakota: Mountain Removal Project Complete.” It’s a joke that reflects the fact that North Dakota has all of the characteristics of most Western landscapes, but minus the big mountains you may find in states just […]
The Islands of Montana
In order to help dispel the overriding cultural myth that the Great Plains are flat, I will devote the next several blogs to various places and regions within the plains which feature significant topographic relief. The Great Plains on the whole are rarely entirely flat, and generally exhibit a gently rolling character, which is occasionally […]
Wild South Dakota Grasslands
I’d like to share an excellent video from the South Dakota Wild Grassland Coalition. They’re an organization looking to create a grassland wilderness area to the southwest of Badlands National Park. To the best of my knowledge, there aren’t any grasslands that have a wilderness designation attached to them (unless you count alpine tundra). A […]
The National Trails System
The Great Plains Trail, almost regardless of its eventual exact route, will cross several National Historic Trails. Although both part of the National Trails System, National Historic Trails (NHT) differ from National Scenic Trails (NST) in that their primary focus is to accurately trace historical routes to provide a window into events from the past. […]
Name the Buffalo Contest!
Ok, the moment you’ve all been patiently waiting for has arrived. It’s time for the Name the Buffalo Contest!! A few months back, graphic designer Kate Rosendale of Chicago was awesome enough to help us create our logo. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, it’s missing one thing: the main character in the logo needs a name. […]
The Highest Point in Texas
To finish off our look at National Parks and Monuments of the Great Plains, let’s take a look at Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas. To be precise, GMNP is not in the Great Plains, but at the northern edge of the Chihauhuan Desert, which extends well into Mexico. The reason I’m including it here […]
The Great Plains Have Volcanoes? Yup!
Continuing our look at the national parks and monuments of the Great Plains we unfortunately must skip Colorado. The Great Plains portion of Colorado has no major national parks or national monuments. There is Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site and Sand Creek National Historic Site. Both of these are important in their own way, […]
