COVER STORY
On the way back to their respective homes following a family visit to Valentine, Nebraska, Michael and Pam Swanson and their daughter, Ashley Schafer, parked at a trailhead off U.S. Highway 20 to take in the panoramic view of the Sandhills from the longest of the 221 bridges that dot the Cowboy Recreation and Nature Trail (rtc.li/ cowboy-trail). The Niobrara River glided through the valley below them, shallow enough in late July for weekend float trippers to drag their feet across the bottom and for the bridge’s visitors to view the riverbed from their perches 148 feet above it. Stopping by the trail’s signature bridge was something of a tradition. “When the children were growing up, we probably came up here 16 years in a row, and this was always part of our stop,” said Michael Swanson, of Malmo, Nebraska. Now Schafer, who lives in Norfolk, has kids of her own, and her family often hops on the Cowboy Trail at its eastern starting point, about 200 miles from Valentine. “We take our bikes out on the Cowboy Trail, and sometimes we start at Ta-Ha-Zouka Park, and then other times we go out to Broken Bridge,” she said. It’s a reason for her and her family to get out in nature, a feature the Cowboy Trail offers in abundance. Across its full, potential 317-mile path, the trail covers over 5,000 acres of wildlife habitat and touches each of the state’s four distinct ecoregions: the tallgrass, mixed-grass and shortgrass prairies, as well as the sig- nature Sandhills of north-central Nebraska. “It really gives you a great opportunity to see, up close, each of these ecoregions and how they differ from each other and the different species that inhabit these different areas of our state,” said Alex Duryea, recreational trails manager for the Nebraska
PHOTO: The Cowboy Trail bridge across the Niobrara National Scenic River near Valentine, Nebraska, is a highlight of the developing Cowboy Recreation and Nature Trail. | Jonathan Egan.
9
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator