Trails West Travel Guide

Welcome to Trails West Magazine, a travel guide focused on western Nebraska, with Gering at the center of the journey. We help visitors discover the places, history, landscapes, food, lodging, scenic drives, small towns, and landmarks that make this part of the state worth exploring. From well-known stops like Scotts Bluff National Monument and Chimney Rock to the quieter places found along backroads and small-town main streets, Trails West Magazine is here to show what you can see, do, and experience within a few hours of Gering.

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Western Nebraska

Gering Nebraska

Where the Ice Ends: Bald Eagles on Nebraska’s Rivers 

Every winter, bald eagles transform Nebraska’s rivers and reservoirs into staging grounds for one of the Great Plains’ most dramatic natural events: the return of the bald eagles.
Gering Nebraska

Jeep Therapy: The Open Road Stress Reset 

On any given summer evening, when the sun drops low and the heat finally starts to fade, you’ll spot them: Jeeps with the doors off, the roof stashed in a garage somewhere, and a couple of friends rolling slowly down backcountry roads. The music drifts, the air rushes, and the world feels lighter for a while.
Gering Nebraska

Sandstorm Survivor: Blowout Penstemon – Western Nebraska’s Most Endangered Plant Species

The Blowout Penstemon (Penstemon haydenii) is a rare and resilient wildflower that thrives only in sand dune blowouts across western Nebraska, northern Colorado, and Wyoming.
Crawford Nebraska

Fort Robinson: Where the Plains Remember 

Western Nebraska’s Pine Ridge country looks quiet today. Rugged buttes rise over the White River valley, cottonwoods trace the water’s bends, and pronghorn graze across the open hills. But beneath the calm lies a history every bit as dramatic as the land itself. This is Fort Robinson, one of the most storied military posts of the Northern Plains.
Crawford Nebraska

Nebraska’s Badland Wonder: Toadstool Geologic Park & Campground 

Toadstool Geologic Park and Campground in northwestern Nebraska is known for its otherworldly badlands, fossil beds, and striking rock formations shaped like giant stone mushrooms.
Nebraska

Chimney Rock Golf Course: Jewel of the Prairie 

Nestled in the rolling grasslands of western Nebraska, just a short drive from Bayard, sits a course that blends history, scenery, and sport into a uniquely memorable experience. Chimney Rock Golf Course, known by some proudly as “The Jewel of the Prairie.
Gering Nebraska

Ghosts of Fort Robinson: Beyond the Battlefield

From phantom hoof clops to flickering lights to sightings of people long gone, Fort Robinson is full of the remnants of pain, suffering, and joy of those who lived there. Tales of ghost soldiers, wandering Native Americans, and children who have chosen to remain forever at the site. 

Eastern Wyoming

Travel Wyoming

Calamity Jane, Wild Bill, and the Three-Mile Hog Ranch at Fort Laramie

While visiting Fort Laramie, take a detour to view another facet of its long and fascinating history at a lesser-known and more scandalous slice of Fort Laramie.
Travel Wyoming

The Death of Mni Akuwin – “Brings Water Home”

Mni Akuwin’s body rested, undisturbed, on this platform until 1876, when Spotted Tail had her remains moved from Fort Laramie and buried at what is now the Spotted Tail Cemetery in Rosebud, South Dakota.
Travel Wyoming

Huntley, Wyoming: The Jewish Homestead That Nearly Disappeared

Between 1881 and 1924, 3 million European Jewish immigrants poured into the United States disillusioned and in genuine danger of annihilation...

NEW JOURNEYS

NEBRASKA

The Cheyenne Breakout: Fort Robinson Escape and Its Impact

Crawford Nebraska
The Cheyenne Breakout involved over 140 Northern Cheyenne held at Fort Robinson who, denied the right to return north and confined without basic necessities, launched a desperate escape on January 9, 1879. This resulted in a brutal clash leading to numerous deaths among both the Cheyenne and U.S. soldiers—one of the darkest, yet pivotal, events of the Indian Wars in Nebraska.

COLORADO

Mount Richthofen: Colorado’s Majestic “Great Chief” of the Never Summer Mountains

Colorado
Nestled in Northern Colorado’s Never Summer Mountains, Mount Richthofen—also known as the “Great Chief”—rises to 12,940 ft above sea level in Rocky Mountain National Park. Known for its vivid red-orange sedimentary rock, glacier-carved valleys, and panoramic summit views, the peak combines rugged geology, rich natural beauty, and World War I history (named for the Red Baron) into an unforgettable climb. Perfect for hikers, backpackers, and nature lovers seeking solitude and scenery beyond the typical Colorado trails.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Hot Springs, South Dakota: Where Warm Springs Meet an Ice Age Graveyard

Travel South Dakota
Tucked into the Southern Black Hills, Hot Springs, South Dakota, wears two coats at once: spa town and science hub. On one side of town, naturally warm, mineral-rich water still bubbles up as it has for millennia, the reason nineteenth-century visitors flocked here to “take the waters.”