Leaving Lacreek NWR yesterday, I drove south into the Nebraska sandhills and then turned west on US 20. The scenic sandhills eventually give way to more open terrain and then, west of Hay Springs, the highway knifes through the Pine Ridge Escarpment. By the time I reached Chadron, I could see the full extent of that Escarpment (the northern edge of the High Plains), curving along the rim of the White River watershed.
Climbing through the western segment of this ridge, I was treated to a winter wonderland where the upsloping Arctic air had coated the pines with a thin icy glaze; atop the ridge, light snow covered the High Plains, disappearing by the time I entered Wyoming. At Lusk, I turned south on Highway 85, crossing a varied landscape of buttes, mesas, rocky headlands, escarpments and badlands, all carved from Tertiary sediments by Rawhide Creek and other tributaries of the North Platte River. Reaching Lingle, I turned west on US 26 and drove through the North Platte Valley, paralleling a segment of the Oregon Trail and passing through Ft. Laramie, a vital center for traders, travelers and settlers during the westward expansion of our country. After crossing the North Platte in Guernsey, at the southern end of the Hartville Uplift, I continued westward toward the Laramie Mountains, Wyoming's portion of the Front Range.
Somewhat reluctantly, I joined the hordes on Interstate 25, which undulates southward toward Metro Denver, dipping to cross the Laramie River and other tributaries of the North Platte. As I climbed toward the Gangplank divide, which separates the watersheds of the North and South Platte Rivers, upslope fog and drizzle developed; in effect, the land was rising to meet the gray overcast that shrouded the High Plains. South of the divide, however, that upslope dissipated, the skies cleared and the high peaks of the Colorado Front Range shimmered in the late autumn sun. By early evening, despite pockets of heavy traffic, I had reached our Littleton farm.
