Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Night of the Living Blog!

Rumors of my blog's demise have been greatly exaggerated...mainly by me.

I can assure you, however, my high plains rambling continues in earnest!  This past spring I was able to get out and do some serious exploration of a region that I must admit I was not very enthused about upon my arrival in the Spring of 2013.  This spring, exploration quickly turned into a succession of binge-explorations and hunts for all manners of life in a region still quite foreign to me. While I certainly miss the eastern woodlands (especially their mushrooms!), I have found myself increasingly intrigued and amazed by the western Kansas high plains.  The diversity of terrain in an initially boring-looking area is especially surprising.  Once you navigate your way out of the seemingly endless sea of corn there is sandsage prairie a few miles from home, chalk badlands to the north, red and gypsum hills to the east and shortgrass prairie everywhere in between.

Due North of Garden City, the bluff tops at Scott State Park are covered in an awesome crust of caliche.

View from a blowout on Sandsage Prairie south of Garden City.

Red hills of Big Basin Prairie Preserve southeast of Garden City.

Yep, those are Bison.

Monument Rocks in the "Chalk Badlands" north of Garden City.

This past season definitely made up for my first year here and I certainly have plenty of digital proof of my ramblings.  Fall is progressing nicely (I can tell by the light snow of corn chaff in the air) and eventually winter will be here...despite my constant requests otherwise.  Stay tuned, this blog is officially undead.

And if you find yourself in western Kansas, first, know that everything is going to be OK!
Secondly, check out some of these awesome places:





Happy Hiking!




2 comments:

  1. Nice post! What's "caliche"? What's a "blowout"?

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    1. Thanks! Hey, maybe I should do a writeup on blowouts! They are really cool micro-habitats.

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