On the Road Summer 2021 Day 4 Valentine National Wildlife Refuge & the Niobrara Scenic River
And it delivered.
The US Fish and Wildlife Service manages a number of wildlife refuges, including the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge in the Sandhills of north-central Nebraska where I was headed. Protecting fish and wildlife requires protecting the ecosystems they rely upon. At the core of the mission at Valentine is protecting the prairie grass ecosystem for bison and the many migrating birds and pollinators. The refuge is home to 270 species of birds, 59 species of mammals and 22 species of reptiles and amphibians. Heading north toward the town of Valentine, make sure you pull off on the right of northbound Route 83 for a short trail showcasing prairie grasses and taking you to an overlook of the wetlands. It will open your eyes to the many vastly different grasses and the unique beauty of the prairie.
The colors and detail are hypnotic. But do stay alert for snakes.
The small town of Valentine was just waking. I was the first visitor at the National Park Service Visitor Center.
The volunteer unlocked the door and allowed me into a back room to watch the movie alone. Since the pandemic began, many visitor centers have been closed or their offerings cut back. A painful casualty has been the movies introducing the parks, monuments and other federal sanctuaries like the Niobrara National Scenic River. The movies are often quite moving. Give me a dramatic score and a powerful landscape image and I’m all proud to be an American and teary-eyed before the story even begins to unfold.
The Niobrara River begins in the high plains of eastern Wyoming and cuts through layers of silt and sand formed from volcanic eruptions and erosion of the Rocky Mountains, creating colorful bluffs and cascading waterfalls. It winds 535 miles before emptying into the Missouri River in northeastern Nebraska. A astonishing six biomes converge here: mixed grass, tall grass and sandhill prairies and northern boreal, western coniferous and eastern deciduous forests. I wandered slowly through the exhibits as I am wont to do, taking my trusty Junior Ranger book with me to complete. I asked the volunteer every question I could think of about the Fort Niobrara Wildlife Refuge and generally got pretty amped up about the biodiversity of flora and the landscape I was mentally preparing to drift through on a kayak.
I signed in at Brewer’s Outfitters in downtown Valentine and stopped at a couple places to view the refuge from different perspectives on my way to the landing site. I wanted to hear an elk bugling for a mate. Mating season would start next week. Maybe a young bull out there was antsy and stomping around thinking he’d get a head start. He’d just belt out his otherworldly scream and see if a female anywhere in these hills was sharing his lust.
Too, I wanted to see bison. I like bison. The buffalo is sacred in my book. Buffalo brings abundance. Not strictly material abundance, but the spaciousness of mind that allows you to see that everything you need is right in front of you.
But I did not see any bison. I would see plenty soon enough. Not millions and millions like there were on the prairie before the white man’s westward expansion and deliberate decimation in the interest of wiping out the indigenous population who relied upon them. And of course there was the interference with the efficacy of the railroads for transporting goods. Here is one of Warren Buffet’s many polluting rail cars. His BNSF line transports virtually everything in the Costco aisle from West Coast ports, e-commerce warehouses, corn and ethanol and a lot of coal, primarily from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana and shipped to power plants across the Midwest, Texas and the South. He’s not alone. There are currently eleven freight railroads running across Nebraska carrying building materials, chemical and fertilizer, industrial products, everything needed to support Nebraska’s sizable cattle industry, you name it. The air is choked with diesel smoke and it is far from pleasant to drive with the windows open.
Never mind all of this. I would see bison in the Dakotas.
A river guide picked me up from the landing where I parked my car and took me upriver to launch.
We had a meaningful conversation. During the school year he teaches children from the nearby Indian reservation. He was pretty concerned about the meth problem on the reservations and the backslide the pandemic meant to these kids forced to stay at home with parents preoccupied with getting their next hit.
The sun was high and blazing hot already. I lathered up with sunblock, doublechecked the sport strap on my shades, slipped my phone in a waterproof case and packed my water bottle and crackers in my daypack. Crackers do and crackers are. It was their fate to get soaked on the floor of the kayak within minutes. I had my swimsuit on under my tie-dyed sun dress and a white long sleeve blouse over it all. As you age, you are more discriminating about your close friends. And the sun is no longer one of them. My once wide-brimmed cowboy hat had become pretty squished in the go-rounds I subjected it to and no longer provided the ample protection it once did. Eyes scanning the river, I hopped in my kayak and shoved off. I did not want to be near anyone who would distract my silent reverie with nature. And I wanted to linger. I had only two more reservations to make before the wedding in Stanley a month out. Camping that night in the Badlands and the next night at Teddy Roosevelt. I could make them both easily even if I simply drifted.
Eyes open to the convergence of biomes, I paddled to one bank, then the other to photograph the delightful juxtaposition of plant species, many I had never before seen. I didn’t want to miss a flower or reed. What do I do with all of these photos? Look at them before I go to sleep and later when my phone shows me I’m running out of storage, I take a final wistful look and delete them. Sometimes I have an internal argument about whether I am present in the moment if I’m photographing and usually decide that I am, doubly so.
What really stole my soul on this downstream voyage were the pink sandstone bluffs, suggesting timelessness. It became a magical float through a refuge in my mind. I slid up onto sandbars a couple times and beached my rig while I dove into the sparkling current to cool off.
Afterward, after I opened the doors and hatchback to let the broiling heat escape from my car, while I changed into dry clothes in the parking lot. Sometimes you just don’t care about modesty and my juncture from societal rules usually coincides with the challenge of pulling off a wet and sandy swimsuit. It’s hard enough without having to do it in a cramped space. I stood between the front and back car doors and just didn’t look around to make eye contact. If anyone was scarred from seeing my body, well, that was their problem. They didn’t have to look.
Determined to get to the Badlands before dark, I quickly shoved my wet sneakers under the seat, and hightailed it down to Smith State Park to check out the waterfalls, allegedly the tallest in Nebraska. I’m not sure what I was expecting. It’s not like Nebraska is known for its waterfalls. It was pleasant enough. The young woman in the gift shop who directed me both to the waterfalls and to the bathroom, which I found equally moving, was engaging and upbeat and that’s always a reason to celebrate the day. I do this mental balancing when I feel regret or negativity slipping in. I’m not being on having a dirty car and rather regretted subjecting my windows and headlamps to another long, dusty road. I lean against it too often without trying. Still, the sidetrip did serve to postpone actually leaving the refuge before I was emotionally prepared. I had only just fallen in love with it. And love needs attention to seal it.
I looked at the clock, mentally adjusting for the time zone as I hadn’t changed it. It’s not that new of a car and I kind of liked that about it. I could still get to my campsite in the Badlands enough in advance of the setting sun thatI could explore a bit. Perhaps even drive some of the scenic loop. Just as the day began, it would close cosmically pretty with the painted rocks shifting hues as the sun dropped to wherever it goes, and the nightlife awakens.
