Day 5: Teddy Roosevelt National Park North Unit

Day 5: Medora, North Unit TR NP

QOTD:  Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young

Pics: Rough Riders Hotel, in and around TR NP North Unit (note trail sign without trail name on it), cacti in ND, petrified wood, everything but caprocks

Weather: Glorious, in 70s with occasional breezes and slight overcast

Breakfast at Rough Riders of blueberry pancakes and yogurt, French toast, coffee, $20. Lunch bought at local general store in Medora (there are no services in North Unit of park): ham, turkey and swiss sandwiches, lemonade ice teas, fritos, $13.

It is 70 miles from Medora to the North Unit, needless to say there are not many visitors to this part of TR NP. It’s Sunday in early summer, very light traffic (one speed trap to get those fracker workers to chip back into the local economy) and THB thinks probably less than a 100 people will be here today. As we approach the visitor center, there is a sign up in the window: we’re in Central time zone (the time zone changes right at the park entrance), so it is now 10:30 instead of 9:30. Hmmmm…

After review of reading material and discussion with a park ranger, we decide to take one of the two reasonably distanced hikes, Caprock Coulee, around 4+ miles. The caprocks are visually very interesting (toadstools?) and less than a mile from the trailhead.

THB and DB do not plan for this hike at our usual standards, leaving behind the following: suntan lotion, watch, hiking stick, compass, food (other than some new suck-upons), backpack, first aid kit, and at the .8 mile marker, the map. Not to worry, the ranger has advised us that we can always turn around and retrace our steps and, hey, we’ve brought along two quarts of liquid.

The last numbered “marker” (where we decide we no longer need a map) is supposed to be the visually stunning caprocks. Well, somebody else must have seen them (there are pictures in the Park brochures). THB and DB look around and cannot find them (there not suppose to be small). Hmmmmm….

Not a problem: the rest of the hike is actually quite stunning as we climb through forest from the base of the badlands up to the top of the buttes, walk near the ridge line, cross the road, and walk down through some interesting rock formations, back through a forest, and to the car in around 2.5 hours. Only mild anxiety as we have to decide if we are on the last half mile back to the car or mildly diverted onto a trail that takes 11 miles to get to the picnic grounds (only 3 miles from our car). No problema, we’ve saved 6 suck-upons and a cup of water just in case we were lost.

Picnic on our sandwiches and fritos and left behind ice tea (and ice, still there in the trunk of the car). At the picnic restroom, there’s a sign up that there is excessive fluoride in the drinking water and those 9 and under should not drink the water. Does this somehow relate to all the fracking going on in this area?

55 miles back towards Medora, we visit a DQ for a sundae and mini-blizzard, $6.72.

When we return to the Rough Riders, there are loud ahhhhhhhs; is this is why they invented showers: it feels great to be clean again.

Dinner at Badlands Pizza, it is bad pizza, two draft brewskies, $25.