The Wonders of Kansas

We spent Labor Day weekend in northwest Kansas with Arthur's family.  Since we were in the area (at least the NW part of the state) we decided to make a side trip to Gove County, Kansas to visit Castle Rock and the Castle Rock Badlands.  I had read about these rock formations in Backpacker Magazine.  There tends to be only a select few hiking trips highlighted for the state of Kansas. Of course we also have a hard time passing up any adventure.


Our first adventure was finding the rock formations.  Thanks to my navigational skills and Arthur's driving we were able to guide our sedan through the back country roads and ruts to the final destination.  First we stopped at the base of Castle Rock.  This formation is 3 pillars that are about 60 feet tall.

A few years ago there was a 4th pillar that was about 80 feet in height.  It was knocked over in a wind storm.  As we parked the car near the bottom we checked the wind currents and decided the car was safe.  It seems strange for rocks to just fall over.  However once we started climbing on the rocks that just crumbled under our feet we could see how a strong storm could cause damage.  The rocks are essentially made of chalk.  The area was once an ocean floor so it was fun to look for the fossilized shells in the layers of the rock.
There wasn't a clear trail so we got to just climb up and down the rocks.  Due to the tendency for the rock to crumble we were pretty careful climbing on the formations.  The area also appeared like a great habitat for snakes, particularly of the rattling kind.  We both have a healthy respect of snakes and were probably a little on edge since I had change in my pocket that rattled as I was climbing.  We didn't see any snakes, however later in the week while walking on the streets on our hometown we let our guard down and that's when we saw a snake.

Fossilized shells in the layer of rock

(Switching to Arthur) My mother-in-law a few months ago handed me a book about a girl growing up with her eccentric father.  While she meant for me to be amused by the man's antics, I instead was drawn to his passion and explanations of geology.  Ever since, I have longed to be able to look at the world with a geologist's eye, to observe my surroundings and have the world tell me a story just like the book I read.  At Castle Rock, the formations make for fascinating speculation for a wannabe geologists.

 In the picture above, you can see the individual layers piling up.  I'm a little unclear about exactly how to interpret this; layers tend to mean sediment deposits, chalk, or calcium carbonate which these layers are comprised mostly of, usually indicate marine life like shelled animals (molluscs mostly?) or coral.  I would guess the truth is somewhere between there. 

 One thing that does surprise me is how unevenly these deposits are distributed.  You would expect water currents to cause a much more even distribution that what we saw.  Coral, I know builds up with time, perhaps avoiding particular water currents because of temperature differentials?

I have to think that loose sediment at one time probably filled in the spaces between these columns and then water washed away the loose stuff.  The strange thing is, almost all of these formations are on one side of a hill.  Its like half of the hill is cut away and this pillars moved in; the other half of the hill obscures the other side.  I'd speculate that Castle Rock represents a point where the crust broke and part of it raised up the 30 or so feet the hill is from the ground where the coral had formed their colonies.  That drop off might have provide a place for sediment to settle and build up with time, only to be washed away when the sea receded.

Anyway, that is the narrative I dreamed up walking around.  I'm looking forward to talking to my uncle, who has a degree in geology, to find out how wrong I am.

 These rock formations are one of the 8 wonders of Kansas.  The rest of the list includes the Big Well, Quivira and Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Refuges, the Eisenhower Presidential Museum, the Cosmosphere, the underground salt mines, Cathedral of the Plains, and the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in the Flinthills.  We have been to several of these "wonders" but still have a few left for future adventures.  Omnia Vincit Amor.