Between fire and fury
Twin towering tongues taste
Arroyo oases, guarded gifts
And seas of grass sporting howling cows
While rocky ridges jut to and fro
Drawing hearty hikers to explore
Pawnee Buttes is a bit of an enigma. Drive for miles through flatlands to get there and even after one enters the Pawnee National Grasslands all you see is the extensive prairie of green grass and grey ridges. Only after you climb one last hillock do the buttes explode out of the ground as if they were keeping their secret until they were forced to reveal their splendor to reward the traveler for their long journey. The pilgrimage is worth the effort.
This is a land of opposites. Dotted across the horizon as you travel to the buttes are drilling rigs steadily pumping their riches of dark oil, this is Weld County after all. But as one nears the buttes, giant white wind turbines, stand guard over the winds, shoulder to shoulder across the plains like soldiers lined up for battle, old and new energy tangle for our Earth’s climate future.
The two white buttes can be approached either over a ridge line with a mini Devil’s Causeway trek across a backbone of rock with steep drops off either side, or through an arroyo dotted with pine amid a drop through a shallow canyon. The ridge trail is closed March 1 through June 30th for nesting birds of prey.
The trails converge and approach the first butte; the butte growing more massive as one approaches. The trail then leads to the second butte and while one can circle the second butte, the social trail around it is not maintained, so hiker beware.
We combined two pleasures on this trip by both hiking and geocaching along the way. Geocaches are hidden caches tracked by a GPS app and are usually chock full of small toys and a log to register your find. They often bring the cacher to areas and vistas you would never travel to but for seeking the cache. It is an enjoyable and rewarding hobby which combines detective skills of clue awareness and a sense of adventure.
One cache drove us to hike around the first butte which we had never done before. Even less of a trail around this one, but we were pleasantly surprised by a natural parabolic microphone at the back of the butte formed by the concave cliff side of the butte. The mooing cows off in the farm pastures beyond the buttes provided the audio source to reflect the sound perfectly to the focal point below the cliff where we stood. This created the audio illusion of the butte emitting haunting howling moos directly at us as we stood in disbelief … udderly amazing, no bull. As I take stock of what we herd in this high steaks situation, I decided to stop butchering the reader with my puns and mooove on. Sorry about that.
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