We got out of the state of Nebraska for the first time in weeks today. We made the drive just south of the border to the Pawnee National Grassland near Grover, Colorado. It's a weekday and not the most popular part of Colorado for outdoor recreation, and so I figured we would have plenty of space for social distancing.
I packed lunch and snack stuff, so when we arrived at the trailhead, we got out our camp chairs and ate lunch in the parking lot, using the car as a windbreak as best we could.
The nearby picnic tables were closed and off limits.
Once lunch was eaten and packed away, we hit the trail with immediate views out to our destination: the Pawnee Buttes.
The first section of trail follows a rim top that overlooks a valley and the distant buttes.
There were lots of wildflowers in bloom in this section.
Then the trail started to descend via a drainage.
Once at the bottom the trail made a right turn and started to make its way to the westernmost of the two buttes.
The cliffs and rim tops off to the sides of the trail are currently off-limits for raptor nesting, specifically peregrine falcons.
We did not see any falcons on our hike today. Slowly we made our way closer to the west butte.
As we passed the west butte,
Sierra found a nice rock to climb and take a break on.
Then we started to make our way towards the east butte, entering into private property.
We ascended to the base of the east butte,
took another break on another rock, and then started to retrace our steps back to the car.
It was a pleasant hike, though a bit windy. Altogether I would say we hiked just over 3 miles round-trip. As we left the Pawnee Buttes Trailhead area, we noted that there are a lot of dispersed camping sites on the loop road that leads to the trail. Something to note for the future.
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