Landmarks of the plains

I expected some wild noises, as Scottsbluff’s zoo was in the same park as the Riverside Campground and only a few hundred yards away. The trees erupted in pre-dawn bird calls, then the zoo’s peacocks began their chants. I crawled from the tent around 4:30; Tim had already been awake for some time. 

Orange blazes already struck the eastern horizon, and I fell in love with Nebraska sunrises once again. We broke up our tents, packed our gear and rolled out as the sun crawled up, not a creature stirring in the campground as the peacocks continued their calls.

As the sun rose, we turned into Scotts Bluff National Monument. We were not the first cars there. It turned out Scotts Bluff served as a park for cyclists and runners outside business hours. As we started out on the trail, we could see cars turning in. What we did not see was people behind us on the trail. Later we discovered why.

The Saddle Rock Trail up Scotts Bluff is not a long jaunt, but one that gives a sense of accomplishment. We covered 1.6 miles up the path, another mile from all the short trails at the top, then enough to the bottom that we covered about four miles and a 400-foot increase in elevation. We set out on the paved path that crossed a field of blooming yucca and wildflowers that slowly increased in elevation till it reach the base of the mesa. The field were lush and verdant, pollinators swarming on the blooms as soon as the sun hit them. 

We walked deeper into a bend in the mesa, then the course turned interesting. Guessing where the trail zigged and zagged proved challenging. While we had no fear of losing the paved trail in the rock, it took many unexpected turns. 

The first people we encountered also shows the boundaries of trail etiquette. A man and his unleashed dog got within about 20 feet of us. We ignored the dog and hastened our pace as we came to a series of twists as the path hugged the rock walls. The dog forgot us as two ladies approached with a leashed dog. From a few hundred yards behind us we heard, “Is your dog friendly?”

He was not. Growling and attacking the leashed dog ensued as the women hazed the unleashed dog away. Not wanting to see what happened next, I heard the women demand an apology and saw the man proceed back down the path, dog still unleashed. They were moving faster than us, so we asked what happened. The man never said a word, not an apology or anything. We sympathized with the law-abiding ladies. 

Saddle Rock and blooming yucca

They disappeared in a few minutes and soon we found why. The trail runs out of places to go along the mesa rim and turned into a short tunnel. We kept winding, passing fingers of rock, places where it had crumbled and looked to the emerging pine groves on the top of the bluff. We could see mule deer grazing across a curve in the bluff, aware of us and completely unconcerned. 

The top came subtly, with a realization we had no more elevation to gain. We wound through the series of short trails across the mesa that lead to lookouts. From the northern viewpoint, we could see Riverside Campground along the North Platte, its activity still light at such an early hour.

Coming to Scotts Bluff before the road opened to cars came with the benefit of being able to walk down the gentler grade of the auto road. 

That explained the lack of people on the Saddlehorn Trail; most opted to walk or run up the auto road. If it was your regular weekend exercise, it made total sense. Dozens of runners and walkers headed up as we went down. We passed through a series of tunnels constructed during the Great Depression to allow auto access to the bluff’s top.

Nearing the bottom, we noticed some circling birds of prey atop the bluffs, in a section visitors cannot access. There were three prairie falcons in the updrafts. 

I forgot what as bird haven Scotts Bluff was. We heard birdsong along the whole path, with cliff swallows darting and diving. Western meadowlarks offered their signature calls. Years ago when I first drove to the top, the call of soaring red-tailed hawk greeted me. Nothing as striking as that emanated from the birds of the morning, but after the sweat and the scenery, nothing needed to.

We stopped back into town for breakfast, opting for Carmen’s Burritos, which had ample tasty breakfast options and was run by Carmen and her family. Scottsbluff is verse in this delightful breakfast stop. While we ate inside, the family served a constant stream of drive-thru window traffic and carryout orders. It felt like they fed half the town. 

Looking west at Chimney Rock

 We had one more item on the list in the Panhandle, a another famous chunk of rock that we could not see from Scottsbluff. The morning was too cloud for any signs of Chimney Rock or the other formations east of Scotts Bluff to pop out of the haze. 

Ten miles out of the city into the farmland, the spire that adorns the Nebraska state quarter comes into view. Chimney Rock National Historical Site is really a Nebraska State Historic Site with no federal connections. 

The state hosts a modern museum that tells the Native and pioneer history of Chimney Rock. The Lakota Sioux who lived on this land named the formation “elk penis.” You have to admire their direct, accurate language. 

The spire of Chimney Rock has lost several dozen feet since its days as a landmark more than a century ago. The formation still stands out from the green farmland and nearby mesas. The museum gives both the geologic history of the rock and its importance to Native cultures and those on the trails west. 

It’s not hard to figure out why it was the most-mentioned feature in diaries of those crossing Nebraska on the pioneer trails. They gone hundreds of miles of flatland and gentle hills, then came the spire to the west. There are still wagon ruts from the region’s trail days that run north of Chimney Rock.

No one told us there was a trail that led closer to Chimney Rock just down the road. But we didn’t mind, having already had a hike for the morning. So we passed back through Scottsbluff and crossed the Wildcat Hills again, the rocky Nebraska Panhandle sliding out of view.

After winding through the hinterlands of Nebraska and Wyoming, passing only the town of LaGrange (pop. 448), we deserved one last landmark, a favorite in this corner of the West. The Wyoming capitol dome still soars above Cheyenne. Commissioned before Wyoming Territory became a state, the core building dates to the 1880s, and has been renovated many times, the most recent finished in 2019. I have seen it at sunrise twice, never at midday. The building holds up in any light. Rain sprinkled on us as we circled the capitol, a good break from time in the car. 

As we prepared to head out, a capitol guard stopped across the street. We conversed for a bit, about the beauty of the capitol grounds and how none of us minded the rain. I slight envied him, as he walked the grounds and mostly talked to tourists during his days outside the gold-leafed dome. Plus, he could appreciate a spritz of rain on a sweltering day. 

With its vintage hotels and striking train depot, Cheyenne still has the feel of a frontier outpost, albeit one that sprouted along the railroad. Cheyenne served as a reminder that while Native peoples roamed the plains and followed the Panhandle landmarks long before the white arrived, the era of the wagon train lasted a few short decades before trains spanned the continent.

Once again, the Wyoming capitol