Chimney Rock
"Massive in scale, each monument towers hundreds of feet above the floor of the North Platte Valley. Each is made of stacked layers of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, and volcanic ash. Differential erosion…
BLM Land
"It was immediately clear that after nearly a thousand miles of travel across the trail we had found the one asshole in a hundred who lacked the hospitality we had found everywhere…
Mile 642: Bridgeport
"After Bridgeport, Nebraska, the landscape changed dramatically, from grasslands to spare, dry sagebrush country, and the soil turned from sandy brown to pink. We were entering the magic, pastel geology…
Mile 1655: Rock Springs Pass
"Now comes the 2,000 foot climb up and over Rock Springs Pass, the highest point along the entire Pony Express Trail, higher even than South Pass in the Rockies, or…
Mile 1677: Egan Canyon
"Special recognition is given to this canyon simply because it is given so much notice by the literature. Egan Canyon was named for Howard Egan who pioneered Chorpenning's mail service through there in…
Mile 395: Cozad, NE
"In 1879 the explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell, later the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, established the 100th meridian as the "moisture line," often locally called the 'dry line,'…
Mile 1444: Riverbed Station
"The station was built in an old riverbed formed by evaporation of Lake Bonneville. The water contained in the northern portion of the great inland sea had a greater surface…
Mile 1952: Fourmile Flat
"About 11 A.M. we set off [from Sand Springs Station] to cross the ten miles of valley that stretched between us and the summit of the western divide still separating us from…
Mile 1900: Smith Creek Station
"Before 8 A.M. we were under way, bound for Smith's Creek. Our path stretched over the remainder of Reese's River Valley, an expanse of white sage and large rabbit-bush which affords fuel even…
Mile 1850: Simpson Park
"A second divide, more abrupt than the former, placed us in sight of Simpson's Park and such a park! a circlet of tawny stubble, embosomed in sage-grown hills, the 'Hiré' or 'Look-out,' and…
Prairillon
"As night had closed in, we found some difficulty in choosing a camping-place: at length we pitched upon a prairillon under the lee of a hill, where we had bunch-grass and fuel,…
Mile 1742: Diamond Springs
"We hastened to ascend Chokop's Pass by a bad, steep dugway: it lies south of " Railroad Kanyon," which is said to be nearly flat-soled. A descent led into 'Moonshine,' called by the…
Pony Express Map
"W. R. Hoonell of Kansas City constructed probably the best 'Map of the Pony Express Route,' and also wrote a short account which is published in The Kansas Historical Quarterly, v. V,…
Mile 1312: Big Mountain
"Big Mountain lies eighteen miles from the city. The top is a narrow crest, suddenly forming an acute based upon an obtuse angle. From that eyrie, 8000 feet above sea level, the weary…
Chaparral
"The Spanish 'chapparal' means a low oak copse. The word has been naturalized in Texas and New Mexico, and applied to the dense and bushy undergrowth, chiefly of briers and thorns, disposed…