Nestled in the Flint Hills is a Kansas jewel — the 117-mile Flint Hills Nature Trail.
The trail, which runs from Osawatomie to Herington, was designated as the “Trail of the Month” by the national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy on the organization’s Web site, www.railstotrails.org.
“Hitching Osawatomie on the east to Herington on the west, this rail-trail is tailor-made for lovers of big skies and unbroken countryside,” according to railstotrails.org.
“You go out there in the Flint Hills, especially when the sun is ready to go down and the breezes blow the prairie grasses like waves,” said John Purvis, president of the Kanza Rail-Trails Conservancy, which owns the corridor and the connecting Landon Trail. “It’s like you’re in a giant sea of grass.”
Scott Allen, board member for Kanza Rails to Trails Conservancy, which manages the Flint Hills Nature Trail and the Landon Nature Trail, said the Flint Hills Nature Trail intersects the Prairie Spirit Trail in Ottawa, which is a state park. According to Rails to Trails Web site, the eastern side of the trail in Osawatomie is wooded and goes through Ottawa and to Osage City and follows the Marais des Cygnes River.
The Flint Hills Nature Trail offers horseback riding, biking, running and hiking.
“Basically any type of non-motorized vehicle,” Allen said. “Down around Council Grove there is quite a few people that will take horses ...”
The trail allows people to go birding and listen to bobwhite quail and wild turkeys or view prairie chickens and bobcats.
“I’ve seen deer, raccoons, turkeys, coyotes, bobcats, possums and skunks,” Allen said. “I’ve seen just about every kind of wildlife we have around here on the trail. It’s a rare morning that I don’t see a deer when I’m out there.”
The Flint Hills Nature Trail is a former rail bed that was converted to a trail after the trains stopped running through. The area was originally developed in 1886 when several railroads started developing the rail line, including the Council Grove, Osage City and Ottawa Railway and the Missouri Pacific, according to the Rails to Trails Web site. The railway was out of service by the 1980s and was railbanked in 1996 and turned over to the Kanza Rail-Trails Conservancy. Trail construction began in 2001. About a third of the trail has been completed, Allen said.
“At that point the Flint Hills Nature Trail will be one of the 10 longest developed rails-trails in the country,” the Web site stated. “In the meantime the full corridor is open to visitors with the caveat that unimproved sections are surfaced in ballast and best suited for horses, hiking and mountain bikes. Yet even the most rugged areas feel like a fitting homage to the once-daunting westward journey across the Kansas tallgrass prairie.”
Volunteers are welcome to help build the trail and help raise money for the trail’s development, Allen said.
“Our motto is hike it, ride it, build it,” Allen said.
• For more information on the Flint Hills Nature Trail go to www.flinthillstrail.org.