Sand Hills

The Sand Hills cover the broad rolling-grassland country in north-central Nebraska, one of the largest stabilized dune fields in the western hemisphere. The terrain is a sea of grass-covered sand dunes — 19,300 square miles of mid-grass prairie laid over wind-deposited sand from the late Pleistocene — broken by the Niobrara, Loup, and Calamus rivers and dotted with dozens of natural lakes and wet meadows. The region holds more cattle than people. Six counties cover the region. Cherry holds Valentine, the largest town, and the Niobrara Valley Preserve; Brown holds Ainsworth and Long Pine; Thomas holds Thedford and most of the Nebraska National Forest at Halsey (the largest hand-planted forest in the country); Valley holds Ord; Garfield holds Burwell. Smith Falls State Park (with Nebraska’s tallest waterfall) and the Niobrara National Scenic River draw paddlers; Merritt Reservoir handles fishing; the Cowboy Trail rail-trail runs east-west across the region. Most trips here run river-and-ranch focused. The Niobrara River carries the largest single-stream visitor traffic — outfitters in Valentine run tubing, canoeing, and tank floats from May through September; the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway along Highway 2 connects the major towns; Burwell’s Nebraska’s Big Rodeo each July anchors the cowboy itinerary.