Lower Fox Creek School at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Accessible by a decent gravel road and worth checking out. Photos by the author.
A couple of years ago I did an east-to-west and back ride across north central Kansas. One of the highlights was the Flint Hills, a narrow ecoregion famous for flint deposits just below the ground?s surface and rich grasslands above. It bridges eastern farmlands with the drier western plains and stretches from just south of the Nebraska line into Oklahoma. Early pioneers called it “the Great American Desert.” Rural Kansas at its finest, I spent a few days prowling its highways getting to know it better.
Many people believe Kansas is flat as a board and boring. This stretch of K-99 contradicts that perception. I kicked off the ride at the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka (read the story here), then pointed my trusty V-Strom west on K-4, the Native Stone Scenic Byway. An 1867 Kansas law closed the open range and offered settlers 40 cents per rod to build stone fences with the abundant material. Some of the work is original, some is undergoing restoration. The byway?s 48 miles includes sections of K-99 as well and ranks among the curviest I?ve ridden in Kansas. I took it to Manhattan, where I visited the Flint Hills Discovery Center, a good resource.
Map of the route taken, by Bill Tipton/compartmaps.com.
North of town, I bedded down at Tuttle Creek Cove Park on Tuttle Creek Lake, one of several reservoirs built and manage...