Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND

 August 23, 2021

It's been a crazy week since I last posted. We left North Cascades on the 15th to work our way to Theodore Roosevelt NP in North Dakota. We drove along Highway 20 heading east. It had just opened up after being closed because of the wildfires in the area.  The damage to the forests along the way was devastating. 

I took a few shots with my phone as we drove by.

We made it as far as Coulee, WA and spent the night at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area near the Coulee Dam. It was 100 degrees that afternoon and the campground had no hookups. Somehow we managed to get some sleep with the help of our little battery-operated fan.

The next day we said goodbye to Washington after being there for about six weeks. We  drove across Idaho and stopped for the night in Missoula, Montana. The next morning as we were on our way to North Dakota, our refrigerator conked out. So we made an unplanned stop in Helena, MT in hopes of getting it fixed. The RV dealer tried to get it restarted, but couldn't and they didn't have the replacement part, but suggested that we call the dealers in Billings. After several phone calls, Lee finally found a dealer in Billings who had the part. So off we went the next morning with the newly purchased cooler from Walmart to Billings, MT. At least we were still heading in the right direction. 

Long story short, we got the part and Lee installed it himself! The unused cooler got returned a few days later in North Dakota.

Phew! So now to the main purpose of this post. Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Our last main stop before getting home.

The entrance to the park is in the town of Medora, a cute little touristy western town. 

The Visitor Center is at the entrance. We watched a short video that gave an overview of the park and it's history. Behind the Visitor Center is Roosevelt's  Maltese Cross cabin that was moved here from its original location. He split his time between this cabin and his Elkhorn Ranch (a remote part of the park), when he came to ND.

From the Visitor Center, we continued five miles into the park to the Cottonwood campground. We were lucky to get one of the first come, first served sites. It's a no-hookups campground, but in a pretty setting.

There is a loop road through the park, but a small portion of it was closed for repair, so it became an out and back. The scenery is beautiful. This park is considered the North Dakota Badlands, but they are very different from the Badlands of South Dakota. (See earlier post.) The cottonwood trees, the grasses, and the river add color to the buttes. 

Looking out at Wind Canyon and the Little Missouri River on our first evening in the park. 

We walked to this overlook the next morning. The rain was coming.

This flower stood in sharp contrast to the rugged path we walked on.

Our view from the overlook

This park is one of the few national parks where visitors can see free-roaming, feral horses.

Here they are close up.

Bison are also plentiful in the park.

The male (left) was chasing after the female, but she didn't seem interested.

I watched this young bison walk over to its mother and appear to be nibbling on her ear. It was a sweet moment.

Mother and her young calf (red dog)

There were prairie dog "towns" everywhere. There must have been thousands of these little critters scurrying in and out of their tunnels and nibbling on grasses.

 

I caught this little guy leaping up in the air.

The sun finally came out on our last full day in the park, so we crammed a lot in. We planned to do some hiking, but first we stopped at one of the overlooks from the previous day, to see what it looked like on a clear day.

We found the trailhead for the Jones Creek Trail. The sign at the start described the trail as moderate, muddy, stream crossings (water could be deep). We just decided we'd start walking and see what happens.

Some scenery on the hike

As you can see by the buffalo chips, we weren't the first ones on this trail today.

If you click on this, you can see the two bison on the hill just above the trees. They had just been on the trail before us.

After 1.5 miles, we came to the first stream crossing. This is where we turned around.

On our way back, one of the bison had settled himself down on the hill looking over his domain. 

On our way to our next hike, we took a detour onto a dirt road in the park, not knowing what we'd find. 

As we rounded the bend, this is who we ran into. We sat and waited for him to decide to get off the road and join his herd in the field.

Time to find another hike. We continued around the loop road until we reached the Boicourt Trail. The beginning of this trail is paved, then leads to an unpaved climb to a view of the park to the south.

The path gets very narrow when you reach the top. I made sure no one was coming up when I was going down that section.

View from the trail

Later in the afternoon, we drove to another entrance to the park. It's called the Painted Canyon. There's a paved path along the rim with views of the colorful rock layers in the canyon. We hiked the Painted Canyon Nature Trail, a loop trail that takes you down a steep path into the canyon.

We left the park yesterday. We spent last night in the parking lot of Phat Fish Brewery in Dickinson, ND, one of the Harvest Host free camping spots. Of course, it's never free because we went in for pizza and beer. Today we're in Jamestown, ND enroute to home. Just 1,400 miles to go.  It's been a wonderful trip, but we're ready to be home.