The Arikaree Breaks

I grew up on the edge of the Arikaree Breaks in Northwestern Kansas as did my dad and mom before me. We didn't know then that they were the "Arikaree" Breaks, though. We just called them "the breaks".

I also didn't know how large of an area they covered. I just thought they were east of Haigler and between our house and Highway 34. We farmed up to the edge of them in one of the fields we rented from someone named "Kaforke" who lived in Blue Hill, Nebraska. We didn't really spend any time exploring them, except for a few times when we had visitors and they were curious about them, so my dad would drive down through the trails between our house and Haigler or Parks.

The Parks road that was built through "the breaks" in the 1930s was the "shortcut" we always took when we went to Benkelman with a load of cattle to sell at Andy Anderson's salebarn or shopping or visiting people we knew there.

Follow this link to see a brochure describing the breaks.

Here is what Wikapedia says about "our" breaks:

"The Arikaree Breaks are badlands in northwest Kansas. They form a two to three mile wide break of rough terrain between the plains of northwestern Kansas and eastern Colorado and the south sides of the Arikaree and Republican river basins. The breaks extend from Rawlins County, Kansas westward across Cheyenne County into Yuma County Colorado.

The Arikaree Breaks were carved by water. The soil here called Loess was blown to the area around 10,000 years ago. The soil has a tendency to erode, forming nearly vertical cliffs. This kind of soil is also found in northeast Kansas, southwest Nebraska, and Iowa. The soil in that part of the state forms the Loess Hills.

Although it is a beautiful place, it is hardly known, even in Kansas, because it lies in one of the least populated parts of the state."