An unscheduled stop and epic mountain bike adventure.

We left Glacier with four days to get to our campsite in the South Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) in North Dakota. As anticipated, after leaving the Rockies behind, the scenery was… shall we say… unimpressive. Ok, make that mind boggling boring for long, long stretches. Add to that, we were constantly either in a thunderstorm or eyeing one warily in the near distance. So Rog decided to put the pedal to the metal and cover our four-day drive in just two days so we could spend 2 nights in the North Unit of TRNP. He had the added incentive of a potential play date with the Maah Daah Hey Trail – a 97-mile hiking/biking trail that joins the North and South Units of the TRNP.

We pulled into the Juniper Campground in the North Unit at 4pm on Friday with no reservation and scored the last awesome pull through site facing a meadow and cottonwood stand. We did the 14-mile scenic drive and the 1.4-mile nature loop and saw only a few other people. The views were stupendous and we loved feeling like we had the place all to ourselves. The landscape changes abruptly and dramatically from open prairie populated by bison herds to desolate moonscapes with wild looking geological features – hoodoos, cannonball concretions, and slumps. We’d read that the North Unit wasn’t as picturesque as the South Unit, but we were just blown away. After seeing the South Unit we’ll have to do a little comparative analysis. :)

View from an overlook on the scenic drive.

Cannonball concretions - very cool!

 The layered effect is caused by pieces of the wall breaking off and "slumping" down the side.

Bison

Rog studied the maps and decided to ride a 20-mile or so section of the Maah Daah Hey Trail from Bennett Creek Campground back to the CCC Campground which was six miles from our campsite. He figured about 4 hours would see him back home. I dropped him off at Bennett Creek at 11:00 am (you didn’t think I was mountain biking this monster did you??!) and went back to our campsite to enjoy a leisurely day of reading, walking, and fretting until he was due back at 3pm. With no cell service, we were totally out of touch.

Rog begins his epic mountain bike ride.

The trail runs through grassland and across sections of the badlands. 

Bentonite mud is not your friend - it's like dirt mixed with paste!

Awesome formations.

Still going strong!

Petrified wood stump - awesome!

Can you see the trail winding through the center of the picture?

Nearly five hours and I only did this much!

When he wasn’t back by 4pm, I headed out to the CCC Campground. I only made it as far as the entrance to our campground when I saw a muddy, exhausted, and smiling mountain biker coming my way. Turns out he had a few minor “adventures” during the day – missed detours, lots of sticky bentonite mud, well-armed vegetation, and getting caught in a bison jam on the way back.  He’d been warned that while bison are pretty oblivious to cars and RVs, they really don’t like motorcycles or bicycles. Rog tried to stay behind a car only to have the guy drive off, leaving him surrounded by 2000 pound potentially hostile natives. When he accidentally scuffed his cleat on the road they spooked and, lucky for him (and me!), took off in the opposite direction. All in all, in was an epic ride.

Tired and muddy, but still smiling (sorta). :)

After dinner, we did the 14-mile scenic drive again and a short sunset hike to Sperati Point to enjoy the views one last time before packing up and heading South in the morning. For an unscheduled stop, it’s been an awesome time! 

Shadows begin creeping across the landscape.

Grassland back lit by the setting sun.

Dusk and a nearly full moon.