If you can handle the miles and miles of flat farmland while driving across North Dakota, then this state will give you a beautiful surprise when you reach its western border. All of a sudden, the flat plains are transformed into the rugged beauty that is often referred to as the North Dakota Badlands.
It is a place where Theodore Roosevelt came in 1883 to hunt bison and to grieve following the death of his first wife. It is also a place that influenced him to turn his love of nature into law when as president, he helped create five national parks and millions of acres of protected land. Because of his conservation efforts, it is fitting that this beautiful North Dakota surprise is called Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
This national park consists of two separate areas. The larger South Unit is located just off of Interstate 94, and thus seems to attract the most visitors. The North Unit is about 70 miles north of I-94 and appears to be the quieter of the two. We were fortunate to be able to visit both areas. Here are my favorite views from ...
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| The North Unit, |
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| and The South Unit |
Which do you like best??
Because of the current pandemic, campgrounds in this national park are closed, but we found a forest service campground, the CCC Campground, conveniently located just outside the North Unit entrance. For $6 a night, there may be no frills, but the views that surrounded us certainly filled us with awe!
For star-gazers like Doug, the total darkness at night was an added bonus as we was able to see Comet NEOWISE make an appearance in the northern night sky after a beautiful sunset.
The North Unit is smaller and has a 28 mile (out and back) scenic drive. We drove to the end of the road at Oxbow Overlook and hiked out to Sperati Point for some amazing views of the rock formations that the Little Missouri River helped carve.
The next morning we packed up and decided to head back towards I-94 to check out the South Unit. Sure glad we did! The South Unit has a 36 mile Scenic Loop around the park, but unfortunately, a section was currently closed off, so once again we made an out and back drive. We still saw some amazing landscape, but it was a little slow going at times with more tourists and bison traffic jams!
We make it to the Buck Hill trail head and hiked out to experience ...
... how beautiful life is when you live on the edge!
One benefit that we are finding when we visit national parks in our van is that we don't have to think about packing food or water since we always have our kitchen with us. And especially now with limited services at many of the parks, we are loving being able to enjoy spectacular views right outside our door as we sit at our dining room table.
The park was definitely filling up with tourists after lunch, so we decided to head out as we had a Harvest Host brewery to check out later that evening. But first ... a little off-roading for the Baby Beest.
Doug had read about a Petrified Forest portion of the park that can be reached by hiking a 10 mile trail in the park or ... by doing a five mile drive on a road just outside of the park. This route takes you up a gravel road with a few steep climbs, but the park ranger assured us that it was in pretty good condition. Time to put Baby Beest to the test!
No problem for Baby Beest and her expert driver! From the trail head parking lot it was a one and a half mile scramble over some rocks and across a grassy meadow ... So worth the journey to see the scatterings of fossilized trees lying all around us!
As we left the park and crossed the Montana border, we realized that although the ride across North Dakota is long, the payoff is great. There is so much beauty in the Badlands of North Dakota ... and we are grateful that Theodore Roosevelt felt the same way 137 years ago!
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