Photo by Peg Britton

The Legacy Trail, brain-child of Jim Gray of Ellsworth, is an invitation to experience the history of the area before construction of Kanopolis Dam. The Legacy Trail is a self-guided automobile tour. Starting at Kanopolis Lake Information Center, the tour visits 27 historical sites, and returns to the Information Center. The complete route is approximately 80 miles, but portions of the route may be done separately if desired. Time spent on the Legacy Trail will vary, but at least three hours are needed to complete the Trail. The Legacy Trail makes use of existing paved roads and sand roads. It is best not to venture on the sand roads during poor weather conditions. Please respect the rights of private landowners.

Photo by Mark Inman Sietz

www.kdwp.state.ks.us/pmforum/kanopolis.html

Kanopolis Lake was named the first state park in Kansas. With 18,000 acres and 16 full utility campsites, it is a popular gathering place for fishing, hunting, hiking, trail rides, boating and camping. Four developed parks meet the needs of the visiting public by providing lake access, parking areas, drinking water, swimming beaches, boat ramps, and camping and picnicking facilities.

Early Indian rock carvings on Inscription Rock in Horse Thief Canyon offer an interesting glimpse into the past. Kanopolis Lake is well-known for its excellent walleye and white bass fishing, but catches of crappie and channel cat can be equally good.

More than 11,000 acres of land are open to public hunting at Kanopolis Lake. Most of this acreage is located at the upper end of the project along the Smoky Hill River. Pheasant, quail, prairie chicken, rabbit, whitetail and mule deer are the most abundant game. Many species of ducks and geese frequent the lake during the fall and spring migrations. Coyote, fox, squirrel, mink, muskrat, beaver, raccoon, and opossum are also common.

Photo by Mark Inman Sietz

www.lasr.net/lasr/kansas/wilson/

Wilson Lake, located on the Saline River, is one of the clearest lakes in Kansas because of the grassland drainage area above it. With 9,000 acres of water and 100 miles of shoreline, it has become one of the most popular recreation areas in central Kansas.

Set in an area with few large bodies of water, Wilson Lake offers a great deal to the outdoor enthusiast. Five parks are provided for your enjoyment. These areas include showers, boat-launching ramps, overnight camping pads, fresh water, picnic tables, grills, swim beaches, group shelters, sand volleyball courts, and playground equipment. Weekend campground programs are given during the summer recreation season. A marina is located in Wilson State Park.

Photo by Peg Britton

The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network has designated the Cheyenne Bottoms as a site of hemispheric importance. This is a place where over 500,000 shorebirds who are in migration land to nest or stop to rejuvenate themselves. These shorebirds include long-billed dowitchers, white-rumped and semi-palmated sandpipers.

Geological forces formed this 41,000-acre natural land sink more than 65 million years ago. The bottoms now reflect years of human action. Nine man-made pools cover nearly 700-acres and 50% of the bottoms is privately owned. It is used for planting crops of wheat, milo, and alfalfa. The overall number of shorebirds and their peak migration vary from year to year depending on the availability of mudflats, which are the perfect habitat for shorebirds. Fluctuations in rainfall promote the generating of insects such as the bloodworms (known for their bright red color). These magnetize the hungry shorebirds in to the marsh. Shorebirds began a long decline in the 70's when the marsh began to suffer from water shortages, which in turn led to the loss of mudflats.

A change came in 1992 when there was a court order to cut back on irrigation to allow more water to flow into the Cheyenne Bottoms. The reoccurrence of mudflats in the Cheyenne Bottoms is helping to bring back the shorebird travelers. Hopefully there will come to be as many travelers as there used to be.

Source: Helen Hands: Shorebird Odyssey: Kansas Travelers: Natural History: May 1998 Volume: 107 no. 4; Pages: 54-55

Photo by Mark Inman Seitz

Kansas Rangelands

Kansas grasslands evolved under semi-arid to subhumid climates, characterized by much the same weather extremes of temperature, rainfall, and snowfall we are familiar with today. As a result of prehistoric glacial activity and other natural forces then and later, plants have migrated from their places of origin, so that today Kansas ranges are simple-to-complex mixtures of perennial grasses and forbs, plus a few native annuals and biennials. Species composition has been modified by the introduction of Kentucky bluegrass and cool-season annual grasses, particularly Japanese brome. Most of the introductions are now "naturalized" enough to be considered permanent parts of Kansas range vegetation.

Through the ages to modern times, wildfires - many started by lightning, but most by primitive people - influenced development of fire-tolerant grasses and suppressed woody vegetation. Certain woody plants, however, always were present as natural components of some grasslands. Browsing by animals and frequent prairie fires were largely responsible for maintaining "normal" amounts of woody species.

In prehistoric time, numerous large herbivores subjected herbaceous vegetation to grazing stress. After the last glacial retreat (15,000 to 25,000 years ago), buffalo emerged as the major dominant large grazer, although the prairies and plains simultaneously supported many pronghorn antelope, elk, deer, prairie dogs, rabbits, rodents, and insects. And each exerted grazing pressures on the vegetation. There is little doubt that during and long before Spanish explorations into Kansas, most of the grassland was used almost continuously throughout the year by one roving herd of buffalo after another and other grazing animals. Grazing and trampling by buffalo and their associates were often intensive, as was uncontrolled grazing by livestock in the late 1800s after most of the wild grazers had been eliminated.

Palatable plants have persisted under nearly all grazing regimes by domestic livestock, whether or not the ranges have been managed economically. The ability of desirable range plants to endure and recover from heavy use underscores the important role of prehistoric grazers in range-plant evolutionary development.

Approximately two-fifths of Kansas (about 20 million acres) is native rangeland, reestablished native range, and grazed woodland. Native vegetation is characterized by various kinds of grassland. Most stockmen and others in the field of range management have general knowledge of kinds and amounts of forage that can be produced on conservatively stocked ranges in different geographical areas. Although important features of range production are reasonably well understood, grazing management and related practices that affect livestock performance are not so well understood.

Reprinted from Kansas Range Research

Clenton Owensby, John Launchbaugh, Robert Cochran, Kling Anderson, Ed Smith, and Eric Vanzant

"Ad astra per aspera", to the stars by hard ways is the State Motto, and kindly note, the "hard ways". Ours is no easy approach to grace, no royal road to happiness, no backstairs to beneficence. -- William Allen White

Most people know three things about Kansas: that it is flat, that it has something to do with The Wizard of Oz, and that the murders depicted in In Cold Blood occurred here. The first is a lie. The second is a fairy tale. The third is a nightmare.

There are many truths about the beauty and history of Kansas, but one that is of particular intrest to me is the Kansas *prairie*.

Kansas has the last remaining great expanse of tallgrass prairie in the United States, and it is one of only four remaining in the world. The others are: The Pampas in South America; The Steppes in Russia; and The Sudan In Africa. Tallgrass prairie is the most endangered biome in North America.

The Flint Hills run from Southern Nebraska, all the way through Kansas, to the Northern part of Oklahoma and are twenty to thirty miles wide containing nearly four million acres of Tallgrass Prairie. Nearly one million cattle summer here annually.

It is important for the people of the world to know this about the prairies as the majority of the worlds' food is grown here. It is important for all of us to maintain and preserve the prairie for all generations to come. William Least-Heat-Moon, who wrote the best-selling book, Blue Highways, captures the essence of the prairie in his 1991 book Prairyerth. For those who want to understand the prairie, I would highly recommend this book. Some of my friends are mentioned in it.

I want to extend my personal thanks to Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker for her life long efforts to preserve our prairies. Some forty years after the idea first surfaced to preserve some of the Kansas prairie under federal control, Congress on October 4th 1996 gave final approval to legislation creating the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Without Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker this effort would not have been successful. The National Park Service will manage just 180 acres of the Z-Bar ranch with the rest of the land (over 10,000 acres) remaining with the National Park Trust, which will continue to allow cattle grazing, permit normal burning of the grassland and work with a local advisory board to address any concerns by landowners, environmentalists or historic preservation organizations.

America's newest national park doesn't have towering forests, majestic rock formations or mountain lakes - just big skies and rolling acres of prairie grass. The nighttime sky on the prairie, free of any city lights, is the most beauitful anywhere on earth. You will always cherish your memories of the prairie and the vast prairie sky.

Now, our prairies are being threatened by an invader that has the potential to replace all the native grass vegetation in Kansas. Sericea lespedeza, which originated in the Far East, was planted in southeast Kansas in the 1930s in abandoned strip mines to stop soil erosion. Wildlife officials planted it in state parks to provide more wildlife cover, a move they now regret.

Also known as Chinese bush clover, it is dangerous because it resists affordable herbicides, blocks the light and steals water and nutrients from rangeland grasses. And even worse, no one has figured out how to stop it.

The Flint Hills are threatened. The tallgrass prairie is threatened. The state's ecosystem is threatened. The weed has already ruined some pastures in central and eastern Kansas and it is beginning to show up in western counties.

Tilled cropland is in no danger, because tilling eradicates the weed. But tilling the Flint Hills or the rest of Kansas would be impossible.

Cattle can stand chin deep in the sericea lespedeza that they will not eat. Much of Kansas revolves around 17.8 million acres of pasture and 6.5 million cattle worth $3.3 billion. Time-honored means of controlling weeds - such as cheap herbicides, bulldozing, or range fires - don't seem to work on this weed. Rangeland burning which gets rid of brush and dead grass just seems to clear the way for sericea lespedeza. This weed is so serious, it might put cattlemen out of business. It is that serious. As the weed spreads, some ranchers are beginning to wonder if they are watching their livelihood pass before their eyes. The Flint Hills are dangerously threatened.

The Salina Journal