Theodore Roosevelt National Park: North Unit, North Dakota - October 1st to 3rd, 2022
Theodore Roosevelt National Park doesn’t receive very many visitors. However, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth visiting. There are two main sections of the park, the North Unit and the South Unit, which are about an hour’s drive apart. This post covers our stay in the North Unit.
Saturday was another cold and rainy day. This time we had a much longer drive, from Lewistown to the Juniper Campground in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Despite the rain, we still enjoyed the landscape. The prairie was in its fall glory with a rich palette of yellows, browns, reds, and a little bit of greens. Large round hay bales dotted the harvested fields. Cows and horses peacefully grazing. The road would dip down every now and then into a coulee. Coulee was a new term to us this season. The first time we remember hearing it was from the Alberta couple we met in Banff. If you are not familiar with a coulee, it is a large gully or ravine that is usually dry and was cut by water. The coulees added a lot of interest to the drive. They were usually filled with more vegetation and color than the surrounding prairie, sometimes containing trees such as cottonwoods.
We didn’t make many stops. The drive along highway 200 is pretty remote, so we topped off our gas tank in both Jordan and Sidney. In between, we stopped at both of the two rest areas along the route, eating our lunch at the second one. In Sidney, we picked up a couple of grocery items that we needed. On the way to the store, we spotted an ice cream shop down one of the side streets. A cold rain was not going to prevent us from enjoying ice cream! The Parlour served ice cream, coffee, and Italian sodas. They had Blue Bunny ice cream, which isn’t the best ice cream in the world, but it’s better than DQ. Ann enjoyed her scoop of mint chocolate chip and scoop of peanut butter & fudge. Keith had his usual vanilla shake, but also ordered a chai latte to go.
We’re not sure what time we arrived at Juniper Campground because we couldn’t tell if they were on Mountain Time or Central Time. Looking at the map, the boundary for the time zone goes right through the middle of the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, right where we were. It was either 4:30 pm or 5:30 pm. The visitor’s center was closed. We had no problem finding an open camp site, but there was a steady stream of people arriving.
We saw plenty of antelope and deer along the highway on Saturday, but as soon as we turned onto the Scenic Drive in the North Unit, we came across two bison. We saw another couple of bison in the short drive to the campground. Somehow they knew this was the place to be.
Dinner took a while to prepare. It was BBQ beef sandwiches with carrot salad. Ann cooked a beef roast in the Instant Pot with liquid smoke. It is pretty tasty, but, even with the pressure cooking, it takes close to two hours to prepare. So we were in our Red Tail Lodge (our camper van) for the rest of the evening. Our exploration of the park would start in the morning.
We started Sunday morning by driving over to the visitor center. There were more bison along the way. One walked out to the middle of the road and drank water from a puddle. We stopped and waited. A couple of other vehicles drove slowly around the bison, but we weren’t willing to risk having the buffalo head butt our Red Tail Lodge. We’re not sure why the bison was hanging out there so long. It looked like he drank the puddle dry, but yet he still stood there with his head down to the ground. Maybe he was just testing our patience. After what seemed like an eternity, which was probably only about five minutes, he finally started to meander down the road and eventually over to the other side, as we followed behind him.
At the visitor center, we talked to the rangers about our plans for the day. We got info about the Caprock Coulee Trail. They advised doing the scenic drive first to let the trail dry out. The Sperati Point Trail at the Oxbow Overlook at the end of the drive should be fine, since it is a level, dirt trail and doesn’t go over any slippery Bentonitic Clay. The ranger also said there are no bears in the park, so bear spray is not needed.
It wasn’t raining in the morning, but it was still cloudy. We drove out to Oxbow Overlook, stopping at most of the overlooks along the way. The views were a little hazy, but still gorgeous. When we reached Oxbow Overlook, we ate our lunch in our Red Tail Lodge while waiting for the sun to come out.
The sun was peeking out when we started the short Sperati Point Trail. The trail was 2.4 miles with an elevation gain of 269 feet which we took us about an hour to complete. At the point, there were views out over the valley cut by the Little Missouri River below. It was a different angle than the view from Oxbow Overlook. Along the trail, we tried to identify all the different vegetation. We could see bison and a herd of cattle from a neighboring ranch out over the plains in the distance. The large number of bison in the park meant we had to watch our step to avoid the buffalo chips.
After the short hike, we drove back to the Caprock Coulee Trailhead for a longer hike. The trailhead is along the road where it is winding its way down from the ridge to the river. The coulees concealed lots of trees donned in their autumn yellow colors.
At the trailhead, we met a nice couple, Randy and Gwen, from Pennsylvania traveling in their new Winnebago EKKO. The EKKO looks like a nice rig. We had a lovely little visit with them before starting our hike. They had just finished the hike and were trying to bang the mud off their boots.
The first part of the trail is a guided nature trail. The rangers back at the visitor center had given us a brochure. We stopped at each of the numbered spots and read the information about it in the guide. We normally don’t do that, but we’re not sure why. It was good that we followed it this time because we would have missed the petrified wood strewn on the opposite wall of the coulee. Just think what else we might have missed on other nature hikes by not reading the nature guides.
The Caprock Coulee Trail was beautiful. It followed along the bottom of a coulee for a while, meandered up through some woods littered with fallen golden leaves, then along some ridges with spectacular views. The trail eventually goes by the River Bend Overlook before continuing along the ridge and descending back down to the trailhead. Along the way, we passed by a variety of rock formations.
And yes, the trail goes across some bentonitic clay. We were glad we listened to the rangers and waited for the trail to dry out. It was mostly dry while we were on it, except for a couple of small spots near the end. The clay gets very slick and slippery when wet. In one of the small little wet spots, Ann slipped and almost lost her footing. Thankfully she was using a trekking pole and was able to catch her balance.
We completed the 4.6 miles with an elevation gain of 607 feet in two hours and 55 minutes. So our totals for the day were 7 miles with an elevation gain of 866 feet in a total time of just under four hours. We counted the combined hikes as hike number 51 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2022 and hike number 30 of our National Park Series.
There were more bison on our drive back to the campground. A park ranger in a pickup truck in front of us was being rather aggressive with his vehicle to shoo the bison off the road. The bison seemed to reluctantly oblige.
Back at the campground, we sat outside for a while since the weather was so nice. A couple of other campers stopped by and chatted with us. It makes camping a more social activity when sitting outside instead of hibernating inside our Red Tail Lodge. We like that.
Just as we were turning in for the night, the thunderstorms arrived. Laying there, listening to the thunder and the rain pounding on the roof, we were thankful to be in an RV and not a tent. However, we were a little concerned that the large dead branch up in the tree above our van might come down in the wind. But we picked out the site. We should be a little more observant next time.
Our plan for Monday was to hike the Buckhorn Trail. It is 10.8 miles with an elevation gain of 1033 feet. That’s a long distance for us so we were hoping to get an early start. However, after all the rain during the night, we changed our minds. Even though 1000 feet over almost 11 miles is not that steep, looking at the elevation profile of the hike, the majority of the gain is within one mile and, probably more importantly, most of the elevation loss is within a mile. If any of that is across bentonitic clay, that could be quite treacherous. So we decided not to hike it.
There are not that many hiking trails left in the North Unit that we had not done yet. The Achenbach Trail is 18.2 miles with an elevation gain of 2358 feet along with two river crossings. No thank you! Then there is the Little Mo Nature Trail which is only 1.1 miles with an elevation gain of only 62 feet of elevation gain. Now that’s more like it. It was shorter than we wanted, but we’ll take it.
We waited until afternoon to give the trails a chance to dry up. However, it was an overcast day, so there was no sun to help. We left from the campground, first walking over to the Cannonball Concretions, just on the other side of the road from the campground entrance. On the way, was passed by two hikers just coming off the Buckhorn Trail. They looked like they were carrying enough gear to be backpacking, so we don’t know if they spent the night on the trail. What we really noticed was that they were just about fully covered in mud, from head to tow. They confirmed that yes, the rain made the trail quite a mess. They made us feel thankful about our decision not to hike the Buckhorn.
The Cannonball Concretions are large spherical rocks that have been exposed by erosion. The spheres are formed by mineral deposits that bind the sediment together like glue. No one is quite sure why they formed into a sphere shape.
The Buckhorn Trail passes right by the Cannonball Concretions, so we did venture about a quarter of a mile or so along the flat portion of the trail until it became too wet and slick for our liking. We even wandered off the trail a little ways into a small coulee that looked interesting before heading back to the road.
The Little Mo Trail starts near the group camping site. There are two loops to the trail. The inner and shorter loop is paved and wheelchair accessible, while the outer and longer loop continues onto a dirt trail. We did the longer loop. At the trailhead, we picked up the nature trail pamphlet and returned it when we were done.
We don’t know why we didn’t bring our trekking poles. All of those 62 feet of elevation gain were in one spot along the dirt section of the trail. Of course it went across some bentonite. Somehow we managed to stay upright, so all was good with the world. We learned some tidbits along the way from the self-guided brochure. We learned an interesting fact about the buffaloberry bush. The thorns of the bush is used by some birds to kill their prey of insects and small rodents.
On the way back to our campsite, we tried to walk through all the puddles along the road in an attempt to wash the clay and mud off our boots. The clay sticks to our boots like glue. We managed to get most of it off. The rest will have to wear off.
By the time we reached our camp site, we had gone 2.9 miles with an elevation gain of 102 feet in an hour and 45 minutes. Not a terribly long hike, but better than nothing. And we managed to keep the mud to our boots and pant legs and off the rest of our clothing and bodies.
Afterwards, we sat outside for a little while. Unlike the day before, there were not pesky flies and gnats swarming us this time. Well, we were starting to learn that what we thought were gnats were really no-see-ums or biting midges. Ann didn’t notice them biting her the day before, but she was starting to get really itchy and burning welts on her forearms. We’re not sure why they attacked Ann and not Keith, perhaps she tasted better. They reminded her of the sand fleas she was bitten by on the shores of Lake Erie (Niagara Falls, New York - August 18th to 19th, 2021). Apparently, sand fleas are also biting midges. By the time Ann went to bed, she had itchy welts on her face, neck, and legs in addition to her arms. The itching kept her awake for quite a while.
The best word to describe our time exploring the North Unit is stunning. We seemed to be visiting during a perfect time of the year, with the fall colors highlighting the spectacular landscapes. We were excited to move on and see what the South Unit had in store for us.
Check out our related video: Theodore Roosevelt National Park: North Unit, North Dakota
(Ann)