The Pawnee National Grassland is (was?) a quiet, desolate and lonely area. But it is rapidly changing. Read More ...

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The areas in the outdoors I seem to gravitate towards are the austere and desolate places. Places such a the high alpine areas of the mountains. The red rock country of the Colorado Plateau. And add to this place the High Prairie of Colorado.

The trip for this weekend was a camping and hiking trip to the Pawnee Buttes located in the Pawnee National Grassland.

Besides being known for the Pawnee Buttes, this is area is where James Michener set the historical fiction novel Centennial. The “Rattlesnake Buttes” in the novel are actually the Pawnee Buttes. The fictional town of Centennial itself is an amalgamation of such nearby towns as Stirling and Ault. Finally, Michener visited the town of Keota, CO while researching the novel. Keota, which aptly translates to “The fire goes out“, served as the basis for the fictional places in the novel that became ghost towns.

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