Backpacker Magazine – November 2012

From the Field: BACKPACKER trail scouts' top Central local hikes

Try a 9-mile out-and-back in Ohio's Hemlock Gorge or hike through history in Per Marquette State Park or on the Saddle Rock Trail in Nebraska.

by: Sarah L. Stewart

Tags:
• RipGo
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• Texas
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• Missouri
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• Ohio
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• Nebraska
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• Illinois
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Saddle Rock Trail, Scotts Bluff NM, NE
Lesley Gaunt, Gering, NE

Ascend through 11 million years of geology on this 3.8-mile out-and-back to a sedimentary rock promontory that towers 800 feet above the Nebraska plains. “You get to see the sandstone, siltstone, and limestone layering close up,” Gaunt says. Just past mile one, enter a 100-foot, 1930s-era tunnel. From the bluff’s 4,659-foot summit, look west 100 miles (on a clear day) to 10,276-foot Laramie Peak. Combo with the .5-mile Mitchell Pass Trail (Trip ID 399005) to follow the path of 19th-century Oregon Trail pioneers. Trip ID 399003

“The whitish-gray layers in the rock are ash from ancient volcanoes as far away as Nevada.”



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