The Sioux Falls Argus Leader newspaper recently ran a story
about Bucher Prairie Park, a 20 acre parcel of land donated to Minnehaha County
as a nature preserve. This park is
a long narrow piece of prairie land that is clearly visible at the intersection
of County 121 and 122, about ten miles north of Rice Street on 478th
Avenue. We drove on Rice Street
towards Brandon and took the first paved road to the left, the road that leads
on to an Interstate ramp and crosses over I 90 next to the RV campground.
Bucher Prairie Park is in the second year of operation by
Minnehaha County. The major
attraction to this park is native grasses and wildflowers. There is good parking, a picnic
shelter, and restrooms located at the head of a series of trails.
A pool formed along a tributary of Slip Up Creek is located
next to the picnic shelter, and there are “sitting rocks” scattered about. These large quartzite rocks are located
throughout the park along the network of trails.
A system of trails loops runs throughout the park and
provides about 1.5 miles of hiking.
It is possible to continue through the loops and not retrace steps along
the way.
The trails are mowed through high native prairie
grasses. A couple of bridges cross
over the shallow depression formed by the Slip Up Creek waterway to permit
looping of the trails.
At the western end of the park, there is a willow thicket
that provides some contrast to the grassland. Outside of the thicket and the picnic shelter, there is
little shade in this park. The
purpose of the park is to provide an opportunity to stroll through native
grasses and think about what the landscape might have been like before
settlement.
This is a pleasant place for a nice stroll through the
grasses. A complete hike through
the loops may take about 40 minutes, providing enough time to appreciate the
plant life. We thought that this
might be a great addition to our hiking rotation of area trails. It would be especially interesting to
visit the park in early spring, mid-summer, and then in the late fall before
the snow flies. Again, the major
attraction is the changing nature of the world of grasses.
There were lots of red-winged blackbirds out flitting
around; but since there are hardly any trees on the property, most of the bird
life we saw were perching birds sitting on old cattails, fence lines, or in the
grasses.
I like this park and the system of trails and believe that
the county has done a nice job of preserving the land as Mr. Lyle Bucher
wanted: “a reflection of the prairie that would have been historically present
on the site.”
A Bucher Prairie Information Brochure and Map can be
obtained at the following URL:
A complete set of photographs taken on this hike can be seen
at my Flickr page: