Exploring Colorado - Pawnee National Grasslands

August 2000

This is going to be short since there really was very little hiking and no backpacking involved. After knee problems caused problems with my original plan to backpack pretty much all of the 2 weeks I was in CO, I decided I'd take a couple days off and drive up to the Pawnee National Grasslands, north and east from Denver. The plan was to do some hiking, but see the grasslands mostly by car. I've always wanted to spend time out on the prairie so I decided to make the best of the glitch in my plans. I ended up spending 1 night and two days on the grasslands before heading back out to the mountains for my last trip.

As soon as I got the new car (the tags on my first one were stolen while on the trail), I headed north on I 25. I found a good jazz station in Denver that I could get the entire trip, very nice. Somewhere past Loveland I decided I'd had enough interstate and started out on back roads. For a while I was traveling in lush (irrigated) farm country. All the water from the mountains visible to the west is sucked into these aqueducts so people can raise corn and alfalfa on the prairie. I'll leave it to you to judge the wisdom of this. The towns here are very interesting, oldish towns with a main street and a hole in the wall restaurant or dinner. Pretty much classic America.

Getting into the grasslands the irrigation stops for the most part and so do the towns and paved roads. However, the dirt roads are in good shape and aren't really miserable at all. Not like many FS roads. As you get away from the trees, hills, and telephone poles you move much closer to heaven. You get out of your car and just walk on the prairie and you are about as close to heaven as you'll ever get on earth (including the top of Everest). When you are on mountain tops your vision is distracted by the peaks and ranges you can see. When on the prairie your vision is distracted by nothing, you are in the sky and all you can see for 360 degrees is horizon. When everything else is taken away the sky becomes real.

The first day I covered many miles of dirt roads, stopping to take a few photos, listen to the wind, and watch the clouds. I made my way to the only FS campground in the grasslands, Crow Valley, a neat little spot in a grove of cotton wood trees with reasonably well kept facilities (no flush toilets or showers) and few people. The campground is near Briggsdale, which contains one gas station with a pay phone and perhaps 15 houses. After setting up camp I hit the road again and took a walk a couple miles back to a pretty much dried up reservoir. I found an old cotton wood tree (see photo) there and sat in it for hours reading a new book and listening to the wind in the trees, no sign of people or other sounds. One of the most peaceful places on earth.

I spent most of the next morning just sitting around the campground (walking a little), enjoying the quite and reading. How wonderful. Finally I finished another book, packed up, and headed out to Pawnee Buttes. The Buttes were way out there through some very deserted places. They were pretty, not as dramatic as one might expect, but really very pretty, and there is lots of room there to do a few miles on and off trail. I didn't see any major birds there (they are known for them), but I did take time to notice how they came about. A relatively hard crust of rock with very soft rock underneath, promoting some erosion.

I headed back through the dirt roads and towards the mountains. I had dinner in a little restaurant in one of these old towns (I heard the 15 year old waitress telling the other how cute my picture was, guess I didn't quite live up to the image). Finally I headed to Boulder and found a much nicer Youth Hostel there for the evening. I was glad I got the chance to make this trip, the prairie provided a good contrast to the mountains, much more subtle and more peaceful. Most people skip these areas for the much more dramatic mountain ranges.