Hike the Heartland: Mountains of Kansas and Iowa

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Outside Magazine March 2004

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Climb Every Mole Hill (cont.)

IT WAS 2 A.M. ON SUNDAY by the time we reached the highest spot in Nebraska: Panorama Point, a 5,424-foot bulge in the extreme western part of the state, near the forlorn three-way junction with Wyoming and Colorado. Though Panorama is more than a mile high, you can't exactly rappel off it. It's a big mound with a crude metal-and-stone marker on top, put there to remind you that it's something special. We pulled the Econoline within six feet of the marker, unfurled our bags, and slept on the summit itself.

We woke shortly after dawn to the lowing of bison from a ranch located half a mile south, in Colorado. Dave got on top of the Econoline to get a bird's-eye digicam view of the utterly horizontal summit, and then we were off. Thirsting for a strong cup of joe, we kept our sand-encrusted eyes peeled for any sign of gourmet coffee. But the Great Plains is the only region in the lower 48 where you can drive for four days and never see a Starbucks. We settled on a venerable diner, the Longhorn Cafe, in Kimball, Nebraska, and sat among ranchers sporting their Sunday-best Stetsons. Near a pot of bitter brown water masquerading as coffee, on a platter perched atop red-checked oilcloth, sat the finest apricot turnovers this side of anywhere.

"Mmm. Succulent orange goo encased in flaky, sugarcoated crust," ventured Spade, a telecom executive who now lives in Colorado Springs.

"This transcends mere breakfast pastry," said Dave, his mouth stuffed.

"This is a reason for even jaded coastal dwellers to come to 'flyover country,' " added Steve, a public defender who lives among jaded coastal dwellers in Silver Spring, Maryland.

I didn't say much. I snarfed three turnovers and later wished I'd pocketed a fourth.

People love to laugh at Mount Sunflower, Kansas's highest point, but here's a fun fact: At 4,039 feet, it towers above most of the Green Mountains in Vermont.

From Kimball, we zigzagged east on Interstate 80, south on U.S. 385, east on I-70, and south on narrow gravel roads toward Mount Sunflower, Kansas. Since all seven of us hail from the Sunflower State, we badly wanted this 4,039-foot trophy.

If you're not from Kansas, you don't understand. You tease us with lame Wizard of Oz jokes. (Note: "We're not in Kansas anymore" is a line from 19-bleeping-39. Let it go.) You find the very concept of Mount Sunflower—a noble hillock that sits one-tenth of a mile from the Colorado state line—to be automatically laughable. But when we were in elementary school, the fact that Mount Sunflower towers above most of Vermont's Green Mountains was balm to our Kansas souls, like learning to sing the sweet state song, "Home on the Range."

Mount Sunflower earns a meager 1 on Martin's scale, involving fewer than ten feet of vertical gain after you park. Non-Kansan eyes might survey the featureless landscape surrounding it and conclude that the nearest town, Weskan, should have stuck with its original name: Monotony. Yet when the Econoline's doors opened peakside, we saw a dreamscape. Atop a treeless, imperceptible uplift stood a majestic, ten-foot-tall iron sunflower. An American flag waved from its stalk. A small corral surrounded the exhibit, echoing Kansas's rich cattle-drive heritage.

Highpoint Adventures raves, "Kansas gets our vote for the most creative and whimsical highpoint monument!" We couldn't have agreed more. State pride engulfed us, despite the moronic entries scrawled in the summit register: "No hiking stick required!" and "It'd be better if you had naked chix!"

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