Rovering and Four-Wheeling The Nebraska Sandhills in June 2014

[roverrocks]

Lonely Sandhills Prairie Windmills Cont.

#1-What's my number?? Ah, now we know where we are again. Always a good thing to have some idea where one is.
#2-This tank is full of common arrowhead (Sagitarria). Must be a government mill.
#3-Dear wife, I'm not convinced those aren't vampire cattle!!! How's your karate?
#4-Mill #124 and a big Nebraska sky.
#5-Mill #85 is full of cattails. Good enough for government land I guess.
#6 & #7- #152 was full of algae, pondweed, toad tadpoles, and a trapped swimming little box turtle that we rescued and removed to dry land.
#8-Amazing!! #152 is only full of cool clean aqua.
#9-How dry I am, how dry I am!!

 

[roverrocks]

Lonely Sandhills Prairie Windmills Cont.

#1 & #2-A windmill sits high on a hill about a hundreds yards from the water tank which sits low in a valley. A buried pipe in between.
#3-Another lonely mill hidden in the choppy grass covered hills of ancient sand.
#4-#143 is definitely not overflowing.
#5-A Halsey area national forest mill and planted rows of Eastern Juniper.
#6-Mill #190 and overflowing tank creating a man-created little wetland important to wildlife and birds.
#7-Getting my old body down far enough to get a long cold drink of ancient pure Oglala Aquifer water.
#8-#241 along the beautiful spring fed Snake River that eventually empties into the Niobrara River that eventually empties into the Missouri River that eventually empties into the Mississippi River and then the Gulf of Mexico. Amazing where water travels.
#9-A Colorado Windmill seen days earlier on the Pawnee National Grasslands.

 

[65 scout]

Simply amazing

 

[fortel]

Great trip. My family has decided to head towards the Black Hills and Badlands area early next summer and seeing this has me thinking we need to explore this area either coming or going. Thanks for the info.

 

[roverrocks]

Great trip. My family has decided to head towards the Black Hills and Badlands area early next summer and seeing this has me thinking we need to explore this area either coming or going. Thanks for the info.

I believe you and your family would greatly enjoy the unique Sandhills. Vast undulating prairie vistas from horizon to horizon, beautiful ranches, scenic lakes and marshes full of birdlife, amazing cattle and horses, a bison herd near Valentine, interesting little towns and settler history, beautiful prairie rivers offering canoeing and rafting and some waterfalls. The Black Hills and Badlands NP are terrific places too. I wish my wife and myself did not live so far away from all these places at times. I always have the urge to wander the Sandhills for peace and tranquility and timelessness. If you go thru tiny Arthur, Nebraska stop in and eat at the Bunkhouse Bar and Grill. Good cheeseburgers plus cowboy/ranch stuff all over the walls and ceiling.

 

[fortel]

roverrocks - I've added Arthur in my planning notes, thanks. I travel to Omaha quite a bit for work but I know western Nebraska is a totally different place and this upcoming trip will be a perfect time to start exploring the area. Being right in the middle of Missouri has us pretty far from many of the places I would like to get to so I understand the feeling. The long views and vistas of tallgrass prairies and grasslands are appealing since I grew up in the pinebelt of the southeast where there was little chance of those kinds of panoramic views. I still need to get over and explore the "B" roads that run through the Flint Hills/Konza Prairie area of Kansas.

 

[Funrover]

Very cool! I bet I could have a good time out there. Would be a great place to set up camp and relax a day or 2!

 

[Elysian Ranch]

Roverrocks, how did you get along with your tires in the sand? Did you ever have any problems or feel like you might get stuck? I ranch just north of Valentine on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation and have been all over the Sand Hills. I have relation who ranch out south of Valentine.

As much fun as you had driving on the trail roads, it's that much more fun driving up and over the hills, rounding up cows and moving them to other pastures or for branding or whatever. It does get pretty "western" on occasion!

 

[roverrocks]

Roverrocks, how did you get along with your tires in the sand? Did you ever have any problems or feel like you might get stuck? I ranch just north of Valentine on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation and have been all over the Sand Hills. I have relation who ranch out south of Valentine.

As much fun as you had driving on the trail roads, it's that much more fun driving up and over the hills, rounding up cows and moving them to other pastures or for branding or whatever. It does get pretty "western" on occasion!

Overall I had little trouble getting up and down the sandy two track trails and I attribute much of that to the abundant Sandhills precipitation of June which left little in the way of deep dry sands. The just-under-the-surface moisture gave me fairly good footing almost everywhere. I ran at 18 PSI with BFG mud terrain tires. I would imagine that two years earlier at the height of the terrible drought the deep dry sands would have been much more challenging in many places on the little used trails. My father was a short grass prairie rancher in southern Sioux County and we did lots of going "western" in chasing cattle at times when I was a kid but being the tight interlocked tough turf of the Nebraska high plains west of the Sandhills we had very firm footing. The wife did a lot of the Sandhills trail driving and she had no problems even though she would get nervous. We stuck to designated two track trails at all times and did not go "western" anywhere even though some pictures may look like we did. I am envious that you and yours have fine ranches out in the beautiful country of northern Nebraska and southern South Dakota. My father died when I was young and I never got the chance to be a rancher which I would have liked. Maybe I would have succeeded and maybe I would have failed if the chance had come my way. Who knows. Life is what it is.