Konza Prairie Trail

Me at the start of the trail.

The flint hills of kansas.

Well maintained trail to eliminate erosion. Everything at the Konza was done with the environment in mind. No pets are allowed on the trails and this trail is the only place you can access any of the property.
One of the creeks has all of its headwaters contained within the Konza. This means that its used as the "benchmark" or baseline of streams in the midwest since its not contaminated with pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer the way the majority of our midwestern streams are.

Buffalo Wallow last used over 150 years ago.

Coyote Scat. I've never been in a place with so many coyotes. You could not walk 5o yards without seeing piles of this everywhere.
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Yesterday afternoon I took a 6 mile hike on the only area of the Konza Prairie that is open to the public. The Konza Prairie is owned by the nature conservancy. It is 8,600 acres in the flint hills of Kansas just south of Kansas State University. The nature conservancy lets KSU conduct biological research on the property. It's really quite fascinating since the land was never plowed and much of it looks exactly as it looked before European settlement changed the landscape of Kansas. In fact, there are buffalo wallows along the trails that I toured today. These were made by wild bison that were last seen on that property in 1857.

All along the trail there are signs of research projects. There are various types of traps, plants that were purposely protected from burns and signs all along the trail telling hikers to stay on the trail and not disturb the ongoing research.

The trail was really well maintained and overall I was really impressed. I am also impressed with my camera bag. This was my first long hike with the bag and it felt great even though it weighs about 45 pounds with all of my gear.

The wind was blowing 30 mph in town and it felt much higher on top of some of these hills.