There were many things I worried about when contemplating biking Southwest Kansas, but prairie rattlesnakes were not among them.  Wind, heat, dust, a deluge of rain and hail, silage trucks, long stretches without places to stop for water or food?  Yes. But deadly snakes?  No.  Yet we had traveled no more than three miles into the Cimmaron National Grasslands when we came across a dead snake on the road just north of point of interest #5, the dried out Cimmaron River.

It was grey and tan and curled up, just like the photos of prairie rattlers I had seen.  I thought it was a rattler.  Jen, my biking companion, disagreed: No rattle.  I was not convinced.

But what did I know? I did not grow up on this land, as Jen had. I was thankful for her joining me partly because it seemed fool-hearty to head out into Dust Bowl territory without some local knowledge and support. 850,000,000 tons of soil a year blew from here in the 1930s.  Drought prevailed.  Crops and cattle died.  People left in a mass exodus.  Morton County was the worst hit county in the nation.  It was so devastated by dust storms that in 1936 the Federal government bought it back from bankrupt farmers and reverted it to grasslands.

Signs of the agricultural past dot the landscape.

Corn can indeed grow in sandy soil.

Windmills still function.

They provide water for cattle.

Today cattle range freely in the grasslands.  Importantly, Cimmaron is a National Forest, not a National Park.  Its mission is not to preserve, but to manage resources for the “public good.”  The district ranger explained to us that grazing is good for the community (which has few other options for making money) and it is good for fire hazard (reducing fuel for the flames).

Water, though, for these cattle is threatened.  A new owner of land just over the border in Colorado has petitioned to drill a water well. The manager of Water District #3 (in which Cimmaron lies) explained to us that Colorado denied them standing in the lawsuit on the grounds that they could not prove that water levels would fall if the well was dug.  Currently, the district is responding by putting in a test well.

Yet despite no “hard” numbers, the effects of pumping massive amounts of water from the Ogallala reservoir are everywhere evident. During the 1970s, two decades of carbon fueled pumping–enabled by discovery of national gas and oil–led the Cimmaron River to disconnect from the Ogallala.

Oil wells fuel pumping of water for cattle and crops from as far down as 500 feet

The Ogallala’s water levels fell so far that it could not recharge the Cimmaron River. Water stopped running year round.  Cottonwoods along the river’s edge died.

Instead of fishing and picnicking, the river became a playground for all terrain vehicles.

Jen and I have come here partly to learn about the problem of the Ogallala.  Most here now believe the water is running out.  This is despite the recent above average rainfall that has turned the grasses green, and brought wildflowers.

The Cimmaron National Grasslands are a place of spectacular and surreal beauty.

Santa Fe Trail and trees growing in the underground Cimmaron River in the background

Yet this is a tough land. The eight miles traveling south to Elkhart were some of the hardest of this journey.  The wind blew a steady 20 miles an hour, gusting to 30.   I have never been so happy to end a ride.

And what about that snake? Cindy, a farmer in the lands above the Cimmaron grasslands, settled it the next morning.  She had run over a rattler the night before.  In the midst of discussing our serpent siting yesterday, she opened a cabinet door and pulled out this glass jar.

“Did it have one of these?”

I nearly jumped out my chair.  A bowl of rattles from prairie rattle snakes is not something I thought I would ever see.  But it did confirm that what we saw yesterday was likely a bull snake.

While rattled, the experience was instructive.  To live on this land is to know this land, and with powerful effect.  Knowledge is often an issue of life or death.  Who will live and die and how as the water drops and the winds keep blowing is the question before us.