Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Day 2

Theodore Roosevelt, our 26th president, first came to North Dakota badlands to hunt in 1883. Before returning east he bought a partnership in a ranch and the next year returned to set up his own ranch.  He hired two woodsmen from Maine to run his ranch while he returned east.  After his wife and mother both died on the same day in the same house, one from childbirth and the other from typhoid, he returned to North Dakota Territory to grieve and heal.  While spending time here, he became alarmed by the damage that was being done to the land and its wildlife.  He became a conservationist and no president has done more for conservation than Theodore Roosevelt.  During his presidency he set aside over 230 million acres of federal land for conservation, an area larger than the state of Texas.  He established 150 National Forests, 25 National Parks and Monuments, 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 4 National Game Reserves and 24 Reclamation Projects.  After his death the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park, later National Park, was set aside to honor his conservation legacy.

Typical Badlands Feature

After packing our daypacks, we started out about 8:30 hoping to get some hiking in before it got too hot.  The park loop is thirty six miles long with some side roads off from it and several hiking trails.  One of the first places we stopped was at a prairie dog village of which there are several around the park.  In large fields there are hundreds of holes where the prairie dogs live.  We sat and watched four babies about six inches long wrestling and playing.  They are so cute.  The larger prairie dogs sit upright at the entrance to their burrows and chatter at us to go away.

Four Baby Prairie Dogs

We stopped at Scoria Point Overlook next.  Where coal seams have caught fire and baked the surrounding sand and clay, the results like a natural brick is called scoria.  Over the years erosion has removed the softer earth and left the bluffs capped with this colorful, harder and more resistant  material.

We parked the car and started up the Ridgeline Trail.  The trail is very steep to start off with and we were both feeling our legs but once we reached the plateau, it was a lovely walk across a meadow and then out to a point for a panoramic view of the area.  We finally saw wildflowers and the view was stunning from I-94 to the south all the way around and back again.  We sat and just drank in the beauty, smell of sage and sounds of birds for at least twenty minutes before the .6 mile trek back to the car.  

Wildflowers with Badlands in the Distance

Ted Approaching Narrow Part of the Trail

The Badlands Continue for Miles

We saw some wild horses along the way and at North Dakota Badlands Overlook we could look across Paddock Creek to see fields of bumps where erosion has worn away all but the hardest materials.

Wild Horses

Paddock Creek

The next hike was the .8 mile Coal Vein Trail.  For over twenty-five years, from 1951 to 1977 a coal vein burned in this area.  When the fire had finally burned itself out, it left spaces underground where the coal had been.  The earth sank to fill the space causing "slumps" or depressions in the land.  Also, as at Scoria, there was bright colored brick-like rocks and brittle pieces of baked clay.  As we walked through this area, we could see deep gullies where the ground had sunk and whole sides of hills that were broken off.

Baked Earth

Area Where Earth has Fallen Away

More Pretty Wildfloweres

Another steep but short climb took us to the top of Buck Hill.  From there, we finally saw some bison.  There were only five and far away but we had remembered the binoculars so we could see them and five was better than none.   The zoom on my small camera is better than I thought and we can at least recognize that they are bison.  We had another three hundred sixty degree view of the spectacular landscape.

Click on the Picture to See the Bison

Ted With a Great View

Top of Buck Hill

The next twelve miles were more of the same beautiful landscape only with much more grassland with the road winding among the eroded peaks.  There was a section of a few miles on the left hand side of the road that looked like it had been burned but the grass was really green and healthy looking.  We later found out that they had done a prescribed burn just three weeks ago.  It is amazing how fast everything comes back.

Prescribed Burn

Wind Canyon Trail is just a short trail but takes you up where you look down on an oxbow of the Little Missouri River.  The prevailing winds pick up the sand from the riverbed and blow it into the northwest facing canyon, sandblasting the rock into smooth, strange shapes.  On the opposite side of the river there were three groups of bison, probably sixty to seventy in all.  Again, they weren't close enough to photograph well but we know they are there in the pictures we have.

Little Missouri River

Sandblasted Sides of Wind Canyon

Herd of Bison on the Plateau

It was eleven miles back to the park entrance and the visitors' center.  The cabin that Roosevelt had lived in on his first ranch has been moved behind the visitors' center.  We went out and looked at the humble log cabin before going in to watch the twenty minute film.  After a look around the museum, we had had enough for the day and drove in to the tiny town of Medora for some beer and milk.  I got Bent Nail IPA from a Montana Brewery and Ted got Fat Tire Amber Ale from Colorado.  It sure tasted good when we got back to the motor home.

Roosevelt's Maltese Cross Cabin

Roosevelt and Horse Made of Narrow Wooden Strips