Visiting the Tallgrass Prairie

I headed toward Oklahoma’s northern border with Kansas to visit the Tallgrass Prairie. I spent the night in the small town of Pawhuska, just outside the preserve, and decided to walk around town without expecting much to be happening. Despite having a population of only a few thousand people, Pawhuska was holding a Christmas parade that night. It lasted about 30 minutes and was mostly made up of pickup trucks pulling homemade floats. For such a small town, they put together a surprisingly good event, and it was a fun experience I hadn’t planned on at all.

December definitely wasn’t the ideal season to see the prairie at its greenest, but the landscape was still impressive and I had the opportunity to see quite a bit of wildlife. Tallgrass prairie once covered an enormous area of central North America, stretching across parts of numerous states, but only a fraction of the original ecosystem remains today. The preserve near Pawhuska protects one of the largest remaining expanses, giving visitors a chance to see what much of this region looked like before most of the prairie was converted to farmland and other uses.

Winter gave the prairie a much different appearance than what you’d see during the warmer months. The bare trees, brown grass, overcast sky, and cold water created a pretty bleak landscape, and I could only imagine how different everything must look when the prairie turns green in the spring. The scene on the left actually reminded me of The Road, a book I had read while climbing Aconcagua. On the right are two bald eagles I spotted during the visit. The photo isn’t great, but seeing them out in the prairie was still a highlight.

The biggest wildlife highlight was seeing bison roaming across the open prairie. Bison play an important role in maintaining the grassland ecosystem through their grazing, while periodic fires also help prevent trees and shrubs from gradually taking over the prairie. The preserve is home to a large bison herd along with deer, coyotes, and a wide variety of birds, including hawks and eagles. Seeing the bison against the open landscape was a fitting way to finish this part of my trip through Oklahoma.

When I return to Oklahoma, I’d like to explore more of the western part of the state and spend more time hiking. I’d also like to see the Tallgrass Prairie again during the spring or summer, when the landscape would look completely different from the cold December prairie I experienced on this visit.