Scotts Bluff is a remnant of ancestral high plains that were hundreds of feet higher than today's Great Plains.
I took this photo from North Overlook, at the summit of Scotts Bluff (4649ft / 1417m), overlooking the old Oregon Trail (that straight road), to the left was the entrance and headquarters of Scotts Bluff National Park. We drove up here from that cool looking curvy road and through the tunnel.
We were heading north to South Dakota (from Colorado), passing through many farmlands and green pastures (tons of cows). We really couldn't ask for a better scenery until these BEAUTIFUL bluffs came into view.
I said to myself, there's no way these interesting rock formations would not be enlisted into the state park system. Oh how wrong I was (or how right I was?) - they didn't made it to the state level, they made it the national's!
Quick quick quick, we must turn around and head into the park!
We ended up spending about 1.5 hour hiking along the summit rim (would have been longer if we were not pressed for time, this was an unplanned stop), then met a lady (and her dog) from the Houston area, and ended up talking to her for at least another 30 minutes (under the strong sun). (I will talk more about her in a later post.)
A brief history for my non-USA friends: The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) east-west, large-wheeled wagon route, stretching from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon. It was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840, and was only passable on foot or by horseback. The Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, and business owners and their families mainly between 1846 and 1869. This route allowed 700 to 1,000 emigrants to join the wagon trains to leave for Oregon in 1843, dubbed as "The Great Migration of 1843".
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