Featured Waypoint: Rock Town at Lake Wilson

blue lake and sky surrounded by big rock formations
Rocktown at Wilson Lake / Photo by Scott Bean, licensed to Sierra Club Kansas Chapter


Note from the Editors

This is what a lake should look like. Lake Wilson is the clearest lake in Kansas, according to the US Army Corps of Engineers. It is free from toxic waste runoffs from factory farms.

Text by Keith Miller

"The Rock Town Trail at Lake Wilson in Russell County provides views of irregular eroded towers of sandstone along the lake shore. These resistant rocks that commonly cap the hills in this area of the Smoky Hills belong to the Dakota Formation that was deposited during the early Cretaceous about 100 million years ago. This was a very important time in Kansas geologic history as these recks record the beginning of the flooding of the mid-continent by rising sea levels. The Dakota Formation contains rocks transitional between shallow sea and nearshore terrestrial settings, including beach sands."


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