Everybody wants to tell me I’m going the wrong way.
The most recent example of this takes place in Tampa, Kansas, a village tucked alongside a train line, surrounded by expansive farms. I had just given up hope of making it to Durham, the next town, in time for lunch when I am pleasantly surprised to find the Santa Fe Cafe open for business in Tampa. That beats the heck out of an 8-mile forced march with little hope for success.
An older farmer greets me as I approach the entrance. “How far are you headed today?” I explain my plans and the confusion is writ large across his face: “You don’t want to go to McPherson if you’re headed to Denver–you should be headed north.” If explaining the merit of a long-distance walk to a non-walker is a challenge, accounting for gratuitous hundreds of miles is a full-fledged dead-end. There is a method to the madness, of course, as the ADT consistently follows the Santa Fe Trail through Kansas, but it will require a lengthy northward course correction in Colorado. Instead of getting bogged down, I shift focus to more general pleasantries, expressing my happiness about finding Tampa’s cafe open and not needing to spring on to Durham. “Well that wouldn’t have worked for you, anyway. They’ve been closed for months. Got flooded out in the spring.”
While flooding was a central storyline of my walk through Missouri, few signs remain of any damage done to Kansas, but the state was ravaged in May. It turns out, May 2019 was the wettest month in Kansas history, with an average of more than 10 inches around the state. Roughly half of its counties declared a state of disaster. The economic impact of this flooding is significant in the short-term, but may be even greater moving forward. As this Wichita Eagle article explains, farms lost this year’s crops, but the real fear is that the flooding eroded topsoil, stripping away the most nutrient-rich parts of the land. That could have long-term ramifications.
Of course, in the past one might be able to map out the road forward–a rough 2019, a gradual return to form over the next few years, and then back to business. With climate change continuing to unfold, though, and extreme weather manifesting itself on an ever-greater frequency, one has to wonder what the recovery-cycle will look like.
Meanwhile, the decline of smaller-scale, family-run farms in Kansas has accelerated rural depopulation. Most of rural Kansas saw its population peak 50 or more years ago. 90% of Kansas’s land is devoted to agriculture, much of it wheat, and the average farm has grown to 770 acres. However, shockingly, farm expenses have more than doubled in the last 15 years, while the price per bushel of wheat has essentially been halved. Add weather crises to the mix and it’s hard to see a future here.
I’ve often read that Kansans have a strong connection to this place, bringing them back again and again, should they ever move away in the first place. My host in Council Grove was like that, having returned from Colorado immediately after graduating college. Another man I spoke with in Council Grove had spent all three decades of his life there. That said, I’ve been struck by how quick people are here to speak disparagingly of their homes. When I told one person I was really impressed by the beauty of downtown Ottawa, their reaction screamed that they were suspicious that I was being patronizing or disingenuous. The guys running the shop at the Durham gas station couldn’t rip Kansas fast enough.
What saddens me most about the decline of Kansas is that it has been objectively the most welcoming place I’ve visited on this trip. One of the most striking things to me about Indiana, when I first started this walk, was the proliferation of “No Trespassing” signs, often supplemented with colorful descriptions of how an intruder might be shot. I thought for a bit about taking a picture of every such sign I saw on a single day, but quickly realized that it would become a massive time-suck. There are “No Trespassing” signs in Kansas as well, but they are far more infrequent; I can walk for miles, past homes and farms, without seeing any. Nobody is warning me about their guns. No police officer has been called to check in on me. Many people want to give me a lift.
It’s easy walking out here. Sure, the temperatures are still in the 90s, but the humidity that hounded me for most of the walk is gone. And sure, Kansas is one big chessboard, with N/S/E/W roads intersecting every mile, and I’m stuck with the powers of a rook when I’d be far better off as a bishop. However, the views are sprawling, there’s enough environmental diversity to keep things interesting, and villages pop up every 8-10 miles. On Monday, I just walked and walked, watching 44 miles of Kansas roll past, and then I pitched my tent in a grassy field just off the dirt road, watching a stunning sunset. On Tuesday, I was rewarded with a shorter approach to McPherson, one of the larger places I’ve been in Kansas, with some 13,000 people.
Of course, that’s based on the 2010 census, and it was larger 30 years ago. We’ll see what story the 2020 census has to tell.
Technical Notes:
- No ADT waymarks since the Flint Hills Trail
- There are some curious route choices for the ADT in this stretch, often opting to follow paved roads when unpaved options are close by. I recognize that the goal is to adhere is closely as possible to the historic Santa Fe Trail, but the only manifestation of that is road signs. (There is one place on the walk from Herington were a sign mentions wagon ruts, but those are 3/4 of a mile off-road.)
- I broke with the ADT at a couple of points. First, I turned left right after Herington Lake, as it brought me on a dirt road past the lake and seemed more interesting. Second, after McPherson Lake I headed straight south to Galva, to have a chance to refill water and grab breakfast. I was happy with both approaches
- It’d be easy to camp in the rec area at Herington Lake
- Of course, it’s easy to camp pretty much anywhere in Kansas
