I have been, very gradually, working my way uphill across Kansas. Ottawa stands at 900 feet, Council Grove at 1230. McPherson hit 1500 feet, while Great Bend climbed up another 350. This ascent, if you can call it that, has been indiscernible in the walk, obscured by Kansas’s implacable flatness, but it’s far from over. The last town I’ll encounter in this state, Coolidge, has an elevation of 3300 feet.
For all those subtly incremental inclines, I was perhaps a bit irrationally excited over an honest-to-goodness hill today. Pawnee Rock stands a whopping 140 feet above the surrounding countryside, today topped by an observation deck that adds an extra dozen feet of height, helping to offset the damage done by railroad builders who excavated the top of this rock.
It was heartening to see, though, that I was not alone in my enthusiasm. Among the many historic placards dotting the hillside, the prevailing sentiment was one of marvel. Private Jacob S. Robinson, staring out from the hilltop in 1846, described it as “one of the grandest sights ever beheld.” The modest peak in 1846 was surrounded by a sea of grass, with only a few interruptions–a line of trees marking out the Arkansas River to the south, and perhaps a small line of wagons negotiating the Santa Fe Trail. That’s it. Today, there are more interruptions–clearly divided (and differentiated) fields, the small town of Pawnee Rock, and Highway 56, but the splendor and scale remain impressive.
It was a reminder of the importance of perspective. For days now, I’ve essentially had a single point of perspective–the road propelling me straight onward, flanked by recently-harvested fields, the sky towering overhead. And sure, 140 feet doesn’t totally change the game–my view was still comprised of road, field, and sky. But the world shifted meaningfully in that minimal ascent, in a way that reinvigorated me for the remainder of the walk to Larned.
