A romp through Western Kansas

87Warrior

GP'er
Western Kansas?

Wait. What? and most notably…..why?!?

The undeniable fact is - if you live east of Kansas City and venture to the West for adventure, you get to encounter 420 miles of Kansas on a lovely four lane road. The drive through Kansas is laborious as you power over the surprisingly long rolling grades of the Flint Hills in the east and then fight the never ending crosswind out west. Kansas gets a bad rap as a boring place since the interstate is where most travelers stay. But what else could a person find if they dared to venture away from the typical 420 miles of tarmac?

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Konza Overland is the fruition of an idea that based itself in Wamego Kansas. The idea that Kansas houses adventurous personalities ready for collaboration and that Kansas itself is a worthwhile journey. Konza isn't a club or official group, Konza is the gathering place for likeminded Kansans (or non-Kansans) who want to experience what Kansas has to offer in addition to other lands.

A small group of four Konza Overlanders met at the Geary State Lake waterfall in Central Kansas to embark on a simple weekend trip to the western plains where most travelers dread spending any amount of time. Make no mistake, this isn't what defines ‘overlanding'; Kansas only has 300,000 acres of public land out of the 52,657,280 acres which make up the state, so we work with what is available. Still, some prior research helped us pinpoint a few points of interest to guide our way, but no one knew what lay ahead.

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Our journey started down Old Highway 40, a winding two lane road that once served as the primary through route to west, prior to Interstate 70. Ordinarily Konza Overland travels minimum maintenance roads throughout the state, but in respect to a short time frame and significant miles we elected to travel some pavement. With slower two lane speeds you could really ‘feel' the landscape since the alignment of this old highway moves with the land instead of through it as on the interstate. We passed through small towns that were on the verge of becoming a ghost town or were perhaps where already. Decaying Americana could be spotted along most of Old Highway 40.

Kansas is known for wheat fields and prairie, not hoodoos of Dakota Sandstone suspended by weathered soft stone. But that is exactly what we found at Mushroom Rock, the state's smallest state park. The Dakota sandstone continued to capture the attention of the Konza group at Faris Caves. These ‘caves' were carved into the Dakota Sandstone in the mid 1880's by a Colorado miner as a home with two living corridors and a spring house to keep food fresh.

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When we arrived at historic Fort Harker I felt comfortable expressing our location as ‘Western' Kansas. Every Kansan has a different opinion regarding where the east and west begin and end which can lead to a significant amount of time arguing a nonsensical point. Fort Harker was established in 1866 as a replacement for Fort Ellsworth and was decommissioned in 1872. The fort was an important staging point for Soldiers as they moved westward and was a critical supply center for westward movement, but was decommissioned when posts we established further west. Few structures from the fort's heyday remain; the Guard House situated along the highway is one of them.

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Mentally resupplied with westward wonder, the group of four continued to lazily make our way westward. One particularly memorable roadside attraction was a derelict service station with ‘CHINSE FOOD' hand painted on the awning. Although none of us stopped to try the cuisine, we all agreed that place probably served some of the best food in the area. Nonetheless, we landed in front of the ‘World's Largest Czech Egg' (or world's largest chicken egg according to some of the youth along for the trip). The small town of Wilson commissioned the creation of the Czech Egg to commemorate the heritage of its citizens.

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The root of Konza Overland is simple. Get out and explore, see something different. While we have spent much of this journey on maintained tarmac, it was time for us to get extremely dusty and stretch our legs a little. As it has been for hundreds of years (most notably for the Butterfield Overland Dispatch trail in recent history), Castle Rock Badlands was the next landmark in our focus. And we were not disappointed! Amidst the eroded Niobrara Chalk formations created some 80 million years ago sat a familiar sight; it was the fifth Konza member to join the westward caravan. When there are four, there are five.

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From Castle Rock Badlands our destination was the first landmark the Department of the Interior designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1968, Monument Rocks. We arrived as the sun was settling down on the western horizon which put on a surreal light and shadow show with the formations. This is the Kansas we were looking for, yet strangely, it didn't feel like Kansas to us.

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With the sun setting and headlights shining down miles of dirt road we came to Lake Scott State Park, the day's final destination. Kansas is not known for its wide expanse of public land, but we are fortunate to have access to several state owned properties. Castle Rock Badlands and Monument Rocks are even privately owned, thankfully by kind hearted property owners who allow the public to visit those wonders. We found an open area near the lake to set up camp with few neighbors. As the last tent was pitched, in the dark, the typical worst nightmare of confined camping struck - from one of the neighboring sites an acoustic guitar was strummed and accompanied with an extraordinarily loud voice, whistling and a harmonica. The musician(s) from the neighboring camp serenaded the entire valley with shockingly good music from the late Tom Petty (and others) for several hours.

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After being lulled to sleep via a Tom Petty classic, the warm morning sun woke camp on what was the first cool night of the season.

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As the morning sun climbed higher in the sky, we loaded the trucks and ventured to the Battle Canyon Historic Site. This was the last conflict between Native Americans, more specifically the Northern Cheyenne, and the United States troops on September 27, 1878 in Kansas. Battle Canyon was a surreal experience as it was difficult to imagine a violent struggle took place in such a beautiful place.

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Now on the last stretch of the trip, ‘expect the unexpected' should have been a well-known and respected phrase among the Konza group. It wasn't. The expectation for Sunday afternoon was to run 60+ miles in a dry Arkansas River bottom. The Arkansas River is one of only three waterways considered to be navigable and open to the public. More than 100 miles of trails have been cut into the Arkansas River bed in Southwestern Kansas where the river runs dry for years at a time.

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Two days prior to making the Western Kansas trip I personally verified the river was dry so there would be no surprises. The USGS Water Information System online makes this pretty easy. Even the best laid plans can fall awry. A massive thunderstorm dropped a substantial amount of rain across much of Kansas the night before we departed and the subsurface was still draining into the riverbed when we arrived, so the river was running. Although the river was shallow, the soft sand river bottom was like soupy mud, so we elected to travel paths beside the riverbed and only cross the water when necessary. This methodology worked well…until it didn't work. The Arkansas River was fun, challenging and wildly entertaining.

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At the end of the river run we were thankful all of the trucks make it out and relatively unscathed, with the exception of sand in the brake pads. This was also the end of our adventure through Western Kansas and we were off to our respective communities to prepare for another work week. This was another successful Konza run through Kansas that surprised all of us. I cannot speak for the four others who went along, but I am ready to go again. If any readers here would like to connect with Konza either because you are passing through Kansas or are a citizen of this flat oasis, check out our informal group on Facebook at: https://facebook.com/groups/1439363596391149
 
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unkamonkey

Explorer
Interesting post. All of my trips across the state were pretty much a matter of endurance to get home to CO. You did find some interesting spots.
 

NMC_EXP

Explorer
Nice report....I like western Kansas and the high plains.

You might read up on the 100th meridian. Good place to refer to as the start of the "west".
 

danfromsyr

Adventurer
nice write up and I agree that kansas is often the overlooked andblamed of boredom.
on our last trip west and back we came back on Kansas Rt160 thru the 'red hills' by Medicine Lodge, KS was a very interesting and very different kansas.
rolling red hills, washouts and tarantulas galore..
 

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