Tallgrass Bus Tour, Visitor Center to Scenic Overlook
Transcript
Alright there we go...so everybody...that will do it. Welcome one and all to our week-daily hike without the hike. Normally this 10-kilometer trip or thereabouts roughly speaking would take in the neighborhood of over two hours to do on foot, depending on how the weather conditions and your own physical abilities, but we will do it in about half that...a little over one hour. So, it should include everything you'd normally get on such an adventure except for all of the sweating and exertion that comes from such physical activity. So that should help keep us all minty fresh for the rest of the day, which is always a good thing. But while we're together, again, for something in the neighborhood of sixty minutes, we'll discover for ourselves what makes the tallgrass prairie unique and special and therefore worthy of our collective efforts to preserve, protect, and defend it.
Because there is nothing in the American Constitution that requires there to be a National Park Service or a Tallgrass Prairie. Nothing except for a vague four-word phrase in the Preamble, "Promote the General Welfare." So it does, indeed, fall to us, "We The People," which does also fall in the Preamble, to "Promote the General Welfare" to the best of our individual abilities. So, well done thus far, just showing up today, that's pretty good.
But before we dive into the park's story, let's kind of drop in on its backstory here a little bit. The park itself was established by an Act of Congress as the 370th unit of the National Park Service on November 12, 1996 and it stands out like all national parks do for what it does and how it does it. Number one, this is the first national park area set up specifically to protect and preserve and defend grass for its own sake. There ought to be a catchy Latin phrase to commemorate that. I'll get to work on that. Give me a few minutes. But it is also unique in how it goes about this mission. And that will become very obvious here in about three and two and one. Right there with that last little rumble, that lets us know that we have left public land behind us.
Currently, "We the People" own 33 acres roughly of this national park, one-third of one percent. So, the remaining 10,861 acres or 99.7% of the park is own by a non-profit group. Currently, that is The Nature Conservancy. But in 1994, it was a group called the National Park Trust, who at the request of US Senator from Kansas, Nancy Landon Kassebaum-Baker, purchased this ranch, in the hopes of one day establishing a national park up on it as a "model for the nation," as the senator put it when the park was dedicated. And that mission was accomplished again in 1996 and the two groups worked side by side establishing many of the activities we know and love today, like this bus ride, among many others.
And then in 2005 the National Park Trust pretty much said, "Well folks, it's been real, but our mission is accomplished. We've done what we've set out here to do at the park. Other parks need our help, so another group needs to step up long-term alongside the National Park Service.
And that's when The Nature Conservancy enters the picture. They are no strangers to this line of work. They've been active worldwide since 1951 doing this very land, water, animal, nature preservation thing. And then in 2005 again, that's when they took on this property from the National Park Trust. So, they've been very active in Kansas, most notably about an hour's drive to the north at a place called Konza Prairie Biological Research Station and that mouthful of a name gives you an idea what they do up there with Kansas State University, and it is not bus rides. They fill the hours up there deep in the evidence-based world, gathering raw, empirical data about the inner mechanisms of the tallgrass prairie. And in order to do that effectively, people are kept to the outside, with only a few areas that have any real public access. But that's not really the M.O. up there anyway. It's an outdoor, living laboratory up there near Manhattan, KS.
But that, in turn, gives places like this a niche to thrive in. Because, not only do we do a fair amount of our own research and restoration and demonstration and the like, we pile on top of that a whole lot of public access and public educational opportunities. Perhaps, more one-on-one, do-it-yourself contact with the tallgrass prairie than you'd get anywhere in Kansas. I mean, if you want to walk around in the grass, this is where you go. And that puts us right up there with some of the top tallgrass destinations on the continent. So, not bad for flyover country.
And now that we're on top of the hill here, you can see what we're attempting to achieve here together and that is the continued protection and preservation of a small portion of a vanishing ecosystem. Now tallgrass in North America shares the fate of grasslands around the world, in that they are perhaps the most humanly altered of ecosystems on the planet.
Just to underscore this fact, more of the Florida Everglades remain intact, as a percentage of the whole, that what you'll find remaining today of North America's tallgrass prairies. And that's astonishing, really, when you think about how much tallgrass covered North America at one time, something like 170 million acres, which is roughly the size of Texas, covering a good chunk of the Great Plains. But it's been whittled down over time to something like 4% of it's original size. So roughly the size of Hawaii, the Hawaiian Islands.
So, what happened? What happened to that other 96%? Did we lose it or misplace it or is there a Deep State conspiracy out there going on that I should be aware of? I'm like, no, sorry to disappoint you. I wish there were, actually. That would be a far more interesting story. But the truth is, as it often is, far more mundane. We are, basically, eating the tallgrass prairie. Transforming it. Converting it to suit human needs. So, because basically if you like to eat and that's kind of a thing that most life forms have in common, they consume resources. But as far as humans go, if you like to eat, you've got a connection to grass already. Because, if you eat it, there's probably a grass connection in there somewhere. So it's not necessarily a right or wrong, up or down, kind of question. It's more a question of conscience, one that has to be reckoned with from generation to generation.
But we are fortunate in Kansas to have more intact tallgrass prairie than you'll find anywhere else in North America. At least two-thirds of the remaining 4%. Which is pretty nice, because we are certainly lacking for Grand Tetons and Grand Canyons here in Kansas. But the one thing we are not lacking is grand prairie on a horizon-to-horizon landscape level, making this one of the few areas on the continent where you can get this kind of impression. And a lot of things go into that to making that a reality, and we'll encounter them while we're together. But they all, basically, boil down to a single word. That word is "ecology," which is a new word in the English language, coined in the 1870s from Greek roots. The Greek word for home and surroundings, that would be "oikos" matched up with the Greek suffix for study, that would be "ology." You put the two together, "oikos" and "ology" and you get the word ecology in English, the study of your home and surroundings and that's exactly what ecology seeks to do, get to know our homes a little bit better and all of the many, myriad interconnections that go on to weave the web of life here on Earth.
And the first of these relationships I like to bring out is one we don't see very easily, but it just goes to show that just because you're small and seemingly insignificant or content to do your best work behind the scenes, doesn't mean you're not also very, very important.
And this particular relationship is the geologic one, which is, quite literally, the foundation of the Flint Hills themselves, which are ironically enough, made not of flint, but limestone and shale, laid down long ago, no matter how you want to measure the passage of time, because Einstein is correct in that time is a variable, passing at different rates depending on your relative frame of reference and point of view.
But scientists go back to a period they call the Permian period, when this area was covered by water at various times and as the water would recede, you would get organic material building up on the surface which eventually became shale when the waters returned and started depositing the calcium and silica-bearing remnants of marine plants and animals and algae and the like and that eventually layered up into the limestone with flint kind of spicing up the limestone. So we get this layered effect, limestone/shale/limestone/shale with flint, again, spicing up the limestone.
And as you look around at the panorama in front of us, you can already, hopefully, begin to detect some of that layering going on. I mean we've definitely got down this eroded valley, you can probably pick out some of the layers just beneath the soil's surface. You might begin to pick up some of the differential erosion over here on the left side.
But you'll also notice as you scan the horizon a lack of trees, except in very specific areas where there is more moisture to work with. That's one of the many things playing against tree growth. But those very conditions make this area ideal for tallgrass and wildflower growth, which has been nursing and nurturing life in the Flint Hills, including human life, for hundreds, maybe even thousands, of years.
So why after all that exposition and description, do we still insist on calling this area the "Flint Hills?" Well, even though this area was known to Europeans, thanks to Spanish-speaking colonial explorers as early as the middle 1500s, it wasn't until the early 1800s, almost three centuries later, before the area got the name "Flint Hills" from an English-speaking American, of course, Zebulon Pike, in 1806, documenting in his journals that for several days, he and his party were traveling through "rough hills of flint."
And that's been the name on this area ever since. It effects about a quarter of the state and starts about 100 miles north near the Nebraska border. It extends southwards, soaking up most of the space between Salina and Topeka, Kansas. It narrows down to the west of Emporia and to the east of Wichita, Kansas and then juts into the Osage Native Nation within the American state of Oklahoma, where they are called the Osage Hills.
But you throw them all together and you have an area of intact tallgrass prairie that is over three times the size of Yellowstone National Park. And that's a wonderful comparison, I think, because number one, it highlights the unassailable fact that most of the intact tallgrass prairie that remains in North America falls outside of any sort of public, protected boundary.
And so when you do leave the public, protected boundaries here at the park and go out exploring elsewhere in the Flint Hills, you'll discover that what's outside the park is remarkably similar to what's inside the park. It's a nice little setup we have going on here, ecologically-speaking, a four-legged relationship I like to call the Legs or the Pillars of the Tallgrass Prairie. And they come to us in the form of moisture, fire, grazing and then the human element, the wild card, the fourth leg, which we can no longer afford to ignore.
Now moisture we get in the neighborhood of 35 maybe 38 inches of collected precipitation a year, but you never know what you're going to get. It's measured out over a 50-year average, so you can have periods of drought and flood and everything in between. So what that means, since there is such fundamental variability in that fundamental force, it ends up having fundamental effects on the ecosystem. Basically, cleansing away the plants and the animals and, yes, the people, who are unable to cope with that kind of situation, leaving behind those who can, who then go on to strengthen the ecosystem.
So, it's all very academic from our relatively comfy circumstances here, but it is all too real when it is your life and livelihood being cleansed away. Again, just another thing to reckon with, not a yes or no answer to a question like that. And there is a buffalo there, about 9 o'clock on the horizon there.
And then you throw fire and grazing on top of that. Now fire is of tremendous benefit out here, although at first glance it generally doesn't sound beneficial. In most places it is an agent of destruction, but out here it is an agent of rebirth, because it literally rakes away the previous year's growth, which will soon be shed by all of these plants. They will shed away what's on the surface, very similar to how a tree will shed its leaves shortly. And then all of that thatch eventually builds up and forms a pretty solid roof upon the landscape. And so, once all of that gets burned away, sunshine and moisture can penetrate deep into the ground and that's where the real action is, in the roots.
Now, three quarters of most prairie plants are underground where you will never see them. So we're only seeing the top quarter of the plant and one cubic yard of big bluestem sod can have twenty miles of root material within it, binding the soil together like steel in concrete, forming a sponge that absorbs moisture, especially in the spring. Generally, that's the high time for fire. Moisture soaks into the ground, kick starts the growing process, and then the grazers show up.
Historically, it would have been elk and buffalo and pronghorn migrating their way to the rich green grasses. These days cattle are shipped by truck into these areas to not only carry the grazing responsibilities, but also form the economic backbone of the region. And so both of these life forms, grazers and grasses, live together. The grazers, of course, have the stomach for this sort of thing, being ruminants and all that.
And then the grasses, far from being burdened by all of these challenges, are strengthened by them, very much like we humans, we are only as strong as the challenges we face on a daily basis. And as long as all of the challenges are checked and balanced with each other, everything tends to remain evenly balanced. But if one force begins to dominate and dictate over the others, well that is when imbalances emerge in an ecosystem. And ecosystems don't like that.
There's a very specific reason why it's not called an "egosystem." That would be very easy for us if it were called an "egosystem," that's what got us in the situation that we're in. It's called an "ecosystem," for a very specific reason. Ecosystems are not concerned with the specifics of life or its expression, only with maintaining the balance of that expression. And whether or not we human beings will be able to make a living, as a species, in the new balance of life forming around the planet is a wide open question that many are finally now beginning to reckon with, and it's not a moment too soon, either.
Now here we are about five minutes’ worth of moments away from the geographic high point of the park, one of the highest points in the Flint Hills is just in front of us and it's a good place to ruminate and for deep thinking, if you're of a mind. And a suggestion I like to throw out is one that's big in ecological circles or really anywhere relationships are found. You may have heard the phrase "strength is found in diversity"? You can never go wrong with that kind of thinking. That's a very good phrase, but I like to rephrase it slightly into "surviving adversity through diversity." Because, that helps to elevate the phrase out of the cliche, cat poster kind of world and puts it right into the "what's in it for me" real world, which is as much as we like to tell ourselves otherwise, that's where we live day to day, "What's in it for me/What am I going to get out of this/How is this going to benefit my life."
Well, in this case, it's very similar to having a good set of tools at home, in your car, or in your head (knowledge and experience), that means you can improvise, you can adapt, you can overcome a great many unknown unknowns that might be coming your way. Emergencies rarely announce themselves beforehand. But if you get a little too comfy and complacent or prideful in what you've accomplished, when the real crisis comes along you wind up realizing all you have at your fingertips is a hammer, and then everything and everyone looks like a nail. So not a good solution, especially in ecological situations.
But never fear, we have a good set of tools in terms of plant and animal life. Grasslands are some of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, in terms of plant and animal life. We have 70 species of grasses alone out here; big bluestem, little bluestem, indiangrass, and switchgrass being the dominant four. And then probably 400 to 500 or more species of non-grass, non-woody, flowering plants called "forbs." You can call them "wildflowers." And then feeding on that are at least 300 to 400 species of animals, like reptiles, amphibians, mammals, birds, fish, that sort of thing. And then over 1000 species of insects and then literally, probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of individual life forms, bacterial, microbial, in the living soil itself. And they all remarkably enough, get along with one another, by taking only what they need and giving back only what they can, they wind up creating the self-sustaining community of life we have all around us here.
And that leads to perhaps the big question, right up there with "Where's the buffalo"? It's "Where is the tallgrass"? I've been very patient with your efforts to educate me, but you can knock it off now and just show me the tallgrass. Well, number one, you've always been there, you've always been in the tallgrass, but fortunately the where and the when are one and the same. So, you can see some big bluestem out there right now, giving you the Vulcan salute or Rock 'n Roll Forever, whatever floats your boat. And the indiangrass is that wispy, golden seed head there.
But if you're still insistent on writing a letter to someone, feel free, just include in that letter, "Change the name of that park, why don't you, to 'Tall in the Fall' Grass National Park and Preserve," because that answers that question right now and gives you good insight into the ecology of the situation out here. The grasses, they do not even wake up until mid-May and they start their slow, steady pattern of growth, topping out in autumn-time, September and October.
And that is a very good thing, because that then encourages the vast majority of plant life, most of which do not mature at 4 or 5 feet high. Many of them are far shorter, probably less than 12 inches. And if you look beyond the tallgrass, look beyond the beautiful stems and look about a foot below, you'll see a lot of growth of just the grass itself, the blades and the leaves of grass gathering sunshine energy, a dense forest of grass there. And if you were trying to gather sunshine as a short, stubby plant in the midst of all that, well good luck, because you're not going to get much sun.
So, instead, they wind up separating from each other. They live in the same space by not competing head to head with one another, embodying an idea you might find in many indigenous cultures and Eastern philosophies, that the most noble and honorable of victories are found in the battles that never have to be fought. I like that idea, I try to embody that, especially when I'm trying to find a parking space at Walmart.
But it does kind of aim a little back toward the cliché, but it's not a cliché, just like bragging, it ain't a cliché, if you can back it up. And we back it up here on a daily basis, the vast majority of the plant and animal relationships are intact, with each life form doing what it does best when it can do it best and in doing so, they wind up sharing what would otherwise be a limited amount of resources. So here we are at the top of the hill. If you want to stick around by the side of the bus, I've got a few more things I can throw at you here. Otherwise, feel free to explore around the bus. I'll get to your questions momentarily.
Tallgrass Bus Tour, Visitor Center to the Scenic Overlook