The Flint Hills of Kansas

I made my first trip from Wichita to Kansas City in 1981 and expected to see a lot of Wheat growing and cattle grazing along the way. I had no idea of the beauty of the largest grassland in North America that is bisected by the Kansas Turnpike from El Dorado through Emporia and on to Topeka. Its full extent is a broadening teardrop from North East Oklahoma to the Nebraska border.

The beauty of the Flint Hills is not something that rears up and smites you. It is a distant horizon that is identical to the pasture next to the road. It is an endless sea of grass that is as close to its prehistoric state as ranchers can keep it. The realization that this landscape is how the terminal, tall grass prairie stood for millennia is enough to make me want to pull off the road and contemplate it until sunset.

"It's 74 miles of boredom," said a fellow traveler as we traversed the turnpike at 75 miles per hour. He couldn't see that the limestone and flint rock strewn cuts indicated why this land couldn't be plowed and remains in its natural state. He couldn't see how fires, set by lightening, swept across it and removed the woody plants while the grasses evolved to keep their strength underground and shoot up boldly each spring. He couldn't see the herds of bison that crossed this landscape by the millions to graze the rich pasture, till the soil with their hooves and continue the cycle of life.

This week, as I passed through, the Flint Hills revealed three colors: gold, black and green. The dead grass was golden as it had endured the winter's bleaching by the sun and winds. The black ashes of the grass swirled on a rocky slope following the prescribed burn and the glorious green shoots emerged to renew the land and provide forage for cattle grazing by the thousands.

The Flint Hills were a portal to heaven for a great American, Knute Rockne. A memorial stands in his honor at the Matfield Green rest area of the Kansas Turnpike. A granite obelisk, on a limestone base, stands on private land about three miles away, somewhat near the town of Bazaar, where Rockne, Notre Dame's greatest football coach, crashed with seven other men on a commercial airplane flight heading from Kansas City to Los Angles on March 31, 1931. In an ESPN story about the 75th anniversary of his death, the writer quotes poetry without knowing it.

"With a cloudless sky, and the Flint Hills still wearing their winter coat, the memorial service Friday commemorating the 75th anniversary of the death of Knute Rockney provided evidence of the connection between God and Notre Dame in which all Irish fans believe: blue and gold, in every direction, as far as the eye could see." --Ivan Maisel ESPN.com

I could die in the Flint Hills but I'd like to live there first. My fantasy is to build an earth sheltered home tucked into a hill with a southern exposure and an observation deck that would allow me to pop up and view the landscape in its seasonal beauty or the dark night sky filled with stars. I'd like to explore the hills and valleys to watch the wildlife, photograph the flowers and document the bluestem grasses as they emerge and turn from green to gold.

I'd like to walk from one side of this spectacular natural place to the other, only impeded by an occasional barbed wire fence. Stopping to refill my water supply from the windmills dotting the prairie and pitching my tent on a windswept bluff and hoping the thunderstorms, forming in the distance, display their power but miss my camp.

The Flint Hills are unique for those who can see beyond the roadside and realize that nature's beauty does not have to be dazzling but may be long and low and lasting.

I flew over the hills in a helicopter once and these words I wrote for a television essay come to mind:

"God made Kansas either first or last. The gentle slopes may have bored him and caused his hand to form high peaks and mighty rivers or he may have finished the Rocky Mountains and just coasted home." --Ken Root, KWCH-TV May 1987

Editor's note: Ken Root is now celebrating his 34th year as an agricultural professional. His career began as a vocational agriculture teacher then turned to agricultural broadcasting and writing as well as environmental consulting and association management. He was the original host of AgriTalk (1994-2001) and now is lead farm broadcaster for WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa. Ken and Jeff Caldwell also publish the MidWest Ag Report electronic newsletter each Friday. A free e-mail subscription is available by going to www.hpj.com and clicking on Midwest Ag Report.

5/1/06

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