Hitting a new trail

Panoramic view from the Prairie Crossing portion of the trail.

Continuing on our summer excursions theme, Buster and I headed to the Dr. Howard Reynolds Nature Trails at Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays.  Around 2 miles of trails through 22-acres that includes prairie, wooded areas and Chetolah Creek, this was a really nice area.

It's a bit rougher than the Vineyard Nature Trail we went on a few weeks ago. Where that's a fairly wide, somewhat-groomed path (meaning they run a big mower along the path once in a while), this one is narrow, curves up and down hills and through trees and often has vines, branches, grasses and even cactus growing in the path. It was great. The Vineyard trail would be good even for people with some mobility issues, but this one is a good prairie hiking path.

The trail gets a bit rough at times. Well, "rough" for Kansas. =)

We walked nearly every bit of the trails, with the only exception a part of the main trail near the monument where we would have had to backtrack one way or another. We did a little backtracking here and there anyway, making it a total of 2.16 miles.

I enjoyed this one more than the Vineyard trail; it was a bit more of a challenge, and longer, so a better workout.

We did head over to the Vineyard trail afterwards and walked part of it, too, but not the whole thing. Buster was pooped by the time we were done, so I think in the future, it will be either-or, but not both, especially on a hot day like this one was already turning out to be.

Check out the Flickr album of our hike.

Ready to head home!