Kansas Visitor's Guide 2007/2008 - (Page 30) W I D E - O P E N S PAC E S IT ONLY SEEMS AS IF KANSAS is one vast wheat field. Head for the southwestern corner of the state, and you’ll find yourself in a fractured landscape of bluffs, ridges and valleys that appears to have been lifted from a Hollywood western. Drive off the main roads, and you may wonder if you’re the only person there. Turn off your engine, and the only sound you’ll hear is the whispering of tumbleweeds blowing across fields and roads. But there’s plenty of life, if you look closely. Ken Brunson and his wife, Lee Ann, lead up-close looks on mountain bicycle excursions through the red, rumpled Gypsum Hills (about 20 miles southwest of Pratt in southcentral Kansas). A prairie falcon — which almost certainly would be spooked into flight by a passing car — simply glares at you from a fence post as you quietly roll past. Clusters of diminutive wildflowers form what looks like an Impressionist painting on the ground. Meadowlarks nesting in the sages and prairie grasses sing warnings to one another as you pedal along. The saddle of a fat-tired bike (guests provide their own mountain bicycles) provides the perfect spot from which to experience the region’s subtle, broad beauty. “People come out from the cities, and the beauty here just lifts their spirits,” says Ken, a state wildlife biologist who, with Lee Ann, founded Red Hills Adventures two years ago. Except for a few climbs, most of each 20-mile ride is gently rolling and eminently relaxing. And there’s always a support vehicle nearby if riders need a break. “It’s supposed to be fun, not work,” Ken says. In the very southwestern corner of the state, you don’t have to travel far down one of Cimarron National Grassland’s dirt roads to feel pulled back in time. Under an enamel-blue sky, a sea of golden grasses and yucca spikes rolls off toward the horizon. Antelope, deer and elk nose around buffalo grass where bison once grazed. It’s easy to stand on a rise here and imagine the Santa Fe Trail wagons creaking through the tall prairie grass. Beginning in the 1820s, thousands of wagons trekked near the line of cottonwoods that marks the normally dry Cimarron River. Limestone pillars mark 23 miles of the trail. Here and there, wagon ruts still furrow the earth. Sprawling across more than 108,000 acres, Cimarron National Grassland represents the largest parcel of public Big country, big adventures. Broaden Kansas. your horizons and lift your spirits in an uncrowded corner of
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