Tour on the Prairie

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Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve
A Tour on the Prairie:
The Southwind Nature Trail
How You Can Get Involved?

Tallgrass prairie once covered more than 140 million acres of the United States, from Indiana to Kansas and from Canada to Texas. Nearly all of it is gone, plowed under in the Cornbelt. The distant past of Kansas accounts for the survival of the Flint Hills tallgrass.

In prehistory, when it was covered by a shallow sea, the region accumulated more limestone than soil. The result was shallow, rocky land considered unsuitable for plowing but excellent for pasture. The natural prairie cycle of weather, wildfires, and animal grazing -- once bison, then cattle -- has sustained the tallgrass and its diverse plant and animal species ever since. Now you can find nearly 200 kinds of birds, 29 types of reptiles and amphibians, and 31 species of mammals. The National Park Trust invites you to experience a rare relic of the prairie. The Southwind Nature Trail, open daily from sunrise to sunset, starts in front of the ranch house. The trail winds its way through the lower prairie, across a tree studded creek bed, and up gently rolling hills to expansive vistas of this unsurpassed wilderness beauty. The loop trail measures 1 3/4 miles.