2021 6-9, Buffalo Gap and Maah Daah Hey trails Mountain Bike Ride

 Four days into our vacation in unrelenting heat and wind of the North Dakota Badlands it was time for a change of pace. After a trail work trip, two days of backpacking, and an off-trail day hike, we decided I would use the next day for some mountain biking. I decided to ride the Buffalo Gap and part of the Maah Daah Hey trails using a shuttle from the helpful folks at Dakota Cyclery. We’d first been shuttled by the Dakota Cyclery folks back in the early 2000s when we had been backpacking the remote sections of the Maah Daah Hey Trail.
The spring weather had been particularly rough. Due to a lack of rain and snow there had already been three prairie fires near Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and June continued especially hot and dry. The highest temperature we’d seen was 106F on the car thermometer driving through Bismarck, and the daytime temps for our hikes had been in the mid-90s. Wet weather is a particular concern in the Badlands. Much of the soil is simply clay, often a treacherous variety called gumbo, which can be phenomenally slick and sticky, at the same time. Wet trails there are simply impassable.
Our forecast for my ride day looked reasonably cool, but the drop in temperatures was the result of a strong cold front that would pass through overnight. Late in the evening the predicted front arrived with a succession of warnings for high winds and locally heavy rain. By night fall we were still dry in Bellfield, but the radar showed the storm was relatively stationary. Lucky for those of us out of the rain but not for those getting the storm. Around bedtime things arrived in our area, very high wind, heavy rain, and some ominous banging and crashing outside our room.
In the morning I took a quick look outside, and it looked like we had gotten a decent rainfall. I called Jen from the bike shop to see if we could postpone the shuttle. She had already contacted a friend nearer to Wannagan Campground (our planned start point) who reported about an inch of rain, far too much to ride on. We decided to try for a noon start at Buffalo Gap CG, which would give me a shorter ride across hopefully drier trail.

Storm damage at our hotel.

Jean and I then decided to drive some of the Theodore Roosevelt NP Loop Road. Getting a better look at Trappers Inn while packing up the car we saw I’d missed a few things in my peek outside. The roof porches on most of the rooms on our side of the Motel had been torn off by the wind. Some sections were up on the motel roof and others lay in the parking lot on the back side of the motel. The porch of the bar next door had collapsed and some windows on the front were torn out. There were drifts of white fluffy stuff scattered through the parking lot, the insulation from the attics of the buildings.

Storm damage.

With little we could do to help, we headed for the park, and drove the loop road with stops for the Boicourt, Old East Entry, and Wind Canyon trails. We stopped at Cottonwood Picnic Area for lunch and got into Medora on time for the shuttle. On the shuttle I learned from Jen that the Wannagan section was too wet to ride, so opting for Buffalo Gap had been our best bet.

Jean at the Old East Entry Station.

From the Buffalo Gap Campground there is a 1.3 mile connector trail to the main Buffalo Gap Trail. I’d also rented a bike from Dakota Cyclery, so I’d be riding what my friend DK calls a “modern” bike, 29” wheels, single chainring, disc brakes, and better geometry. The bike was a blast to ride, and the connector trail went by in a blur.

My new ride.

Part of my reason for picking my route was to review some trail that I hadn’t ridden recently. My guide to the ND trails had come out earlier in the spring, but I couldn’t resist the chance to make sure an older write up was still relevant. The guidebook work would necessitate a lot of starting and stopping, But I could still enjoy the flow of the trail across the prairie. The Buffalo Gap Trail had been built the Forest Service as a bypass for mountain bikes around the trail through a Wilderness Area in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Since it was designed for bikes, the tread and lay out were smoother and more fun than the original sections of the Maah Daah Hey Trail, which were designed for hikers and horse riders.

Prairie riding.

Pristine Singletrack.

The day hadn’t quite heated up yet and I tried to use my speed on the bike to generate a little bit of breeze. The initial prairie sections went by quickly; a guest ranch, stock pond, and oil well site summed up the region’s economy in just a couple miles of trail. The trail under I-94 used a “drive a bus through” sized tunnel, apparently the previous cow-sized tunnel had made a few folks nervous.

The tunnel under I-94.

Not long after the tunnel I got my first taste of badlands riding, luckily the ground was now bone dry. After crossing Old Highway 10 there is a short tunnel under the railroad line flanked by a pair of lift gates. Jean and I had become life members of the Maah Daah Hey Trail Association the previous year, and on the back side of the gate was the commemorative plaque for our donation.

Our sign by the railroad tunnel.

Riding through the badlands.

Beautiful Badlands.

At Andrews Creek the Forest Service had hardened this normally muddy crossing with slabs of concrete and I was able to easily ride across what otherwise would have been a long cattle-fouled mud pit.
Once across the West River Road I was back in Badlands Terrain The road was also the perimeter of March’s Medora Fire and I could see burned areas off in the distance. Just south of MP2 a dozer road from the firebreak briefly joined the trail, and I would be in and out of burned areas the rest of the ride. Far from a waste land, the burned areas looked greener than the surrounded areas. Many prairie grasses need fire to flourish, and the burned areas looked healthier than the undisturbed areas.

Part of the Medora fire area.

After 8 miles on the Buffalo Gap Trail, I reached the junction with the Maah Daah Hey Trail. I decided to make the four mile roundtrip side trip south to the ford of the Little Missouri River, since I had not ridden that section in many years either. The ride started with a great descent through some twisty badlands before depositing me on the river bottom. I rode some two track and trail into property owned by a horse ranch before reaching the edge of the river. I had no need to cross, but it would have been an easy trip in shin deep water.

Junction of the Buffalo Gap and Maah Daah Hey Trails.

The ride back to the Buffalo Gap junction wore me out a bit, and I had to push the bike up a few hills as penance for so enjoying the descent. Despite the trail’s proximity to the horse ranch, the tread was in great shape and showed no damage from the horse use. Back at the MDH/Buffalo Gap junction it was mostly downhill on the MDH. This section is fun, fast, and flowy and a favorite of local riders and visitors looking for a quick outing. I soon met up with my only other riders of the day, a woman huddled in the modest shade of a single juniper, and a pair of guys cranking up the hill. I rode in and out of the burned areas  which got remarkably close to town.

Riding into Medora.

Since my last visit the final crossings of Andrews Creek had been hardened, and instead of a frustrating search for a dry crossing I simply splashed across the new gravel. Next up was the 1.5 mile back on the bike path to the shop where I gave up my new ride for the comfort of a ride back to the motel with Jean.
Though I was disappointed that I was not to be able to have ridden the full ride from Wannagan into Medora, I had great fun. I love the mix of more technical badlands riding and the easier speed and smoothness of the prairie sections. Weather had made Wannagan unrideable, but Buffalo Gap was a great solution. The first few miles were prairie with less scenery, but those miles gave me a chance to get used to the new bike, and to pass some easy miles. On the next trip, maybe I can ride from Buffalo Gap to Wannagan and back, or even a bit further north.

2021 6-8, TRNP Petrified Forest Exploration

Our 2021 North Dakota Badlands trip was planned mostly to celebrate the release of the new edition of my North Dakota Hiking Guide (Guidebook), but also to do some hikes that we didn’t have time for while preparing the guide. One fun hike that wouldn’t fit in the book is an off trail hike through the Petrified Forest on the west side of Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit. Hiking off trail in the Badlands is not for beginners, the jumbled topography is hard to read on a map, but we figured our previous experience, and my geology training should get us through.

Fossilized tree stumps.

The rocks in Theodore Roosevelt National Park originally were deposited as sediments during the Paleocene epoch (55-65 million years ago). Rocks of the Bullion Creek and Sentinel Butte formations are found. These sediments were deposited by the rivers and streams that drained the ancestral Rocky Mountains. As the ancient Rocky Mountains began to rise, a chain of volcanoes became active in what is now Montana and Wyoming. Huge eruptions of these volcanoes sent volcanic ash as far east as the Dakotas. These ash deposits are found in the park as beds of bentonite, the clay mineral commonly called gumbo when wet.

Jean along the magic mile.

Petrified wood is common throughout Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The rapid rate of Paleocene sedimentation accounts for the formation of fossil wood. In the Paleocene climate, much of the landscape was covered by thick forests and swamps. After rapid changes in stream channels or volcanic eruptions, many trees were buried before they decayed. Following further burial, groundwater began to circulate through the sediments. Silica that was dissolved from the ash beds was then redeposited in the wood as groundwater saturated the buried trees. Eventually, silica replaced and coated much of the woody plant tissues to create petrified wood. In well-preserved specimens, growth rings and other features still are visible. The most common type of petrified wood in the park is preserved tree stumps.

The Petrified Forest is accessed in two areas along the Petrified Forest Loop. It doesn’t take much imagination to suspect that the two fossil locales along the trail connect, and testing this idea would be the goal of our hike. We got an early start, and still found two cars at the trailhead when we arrived. The loop is accessed from a short feeder trail where there is often a lone bison grazing. We decided to try hiking out to the north exposure, then trying to work our way to the south one.

Bison grazing.

When we reached the north side of the forest, we left the trail to trace the outer edge of the forest, hoping to see some different fossils. The fossil bed lies just below the top of the grasslands on Big Plateau and are exposed by erosion of two branches of the headwaters of a small unnamed tributary of Wannagan Creek.  We spotted a pair of thin brown and black layers that appeared to just above the fossil layer and figured if we could follow the pair, we would be able to trace the fossil layer.

The fossil bearing layer.

Near the far end of the north exposure is one of the forest’s most magnificent sites, a long line of huge fossils stretching out away from the trail. We crossed over the trail and began to follow this line east. The fossils weren’t much different than what we’d seen along the trail, but some were larger, and the preservation of features on others was finer. One surprise was that even without the fossils the area was gorgeous. We poked along the fossil horizon to the point where we realized that the unnamed branch was getting deep enough that it might be difficult to cross. So, we left that fossil bed reasoning that we could discover similar exposures on the other side of the draw.

The start of the magic mile.

Detail of the base of a fossilized stump.

View across the fossil forest.

We continued over a small butte and into the second draw, still finding prolific fossils and no sign of other travelers. Continuing along we eventually climbed back to the grassland elevation and reached the south side of the loop trail, just east of the end of the fossils.

Small butte.

We had one other goal for the day, to explore the section of the Mike Auney Trail on the west side of the Little Missouri River. Our previous efforts to hike that trail from the east side had been thwarted by high water in the river. We were able to follow trails to the river, finding the Mike Auney both surprisingly scenic and in remarkably good shape for what we had imagined was a major horsepacking route. However, despite cutting through the same layers that contained the Petrified Forest, we saw no fossils on that trail.

We returned to the south side of the loop trail and enjoyed the Petrified Forest exposures along the south side of the trail. We seem to do the loop consistently clockwise, taking much time to appreciate the fossils on the north side while we are fresh, and hurrying through the south side when we’re tired.

Huge fossil in the south side of the loop.

Jean hiking through the south side of the forest.

By the end of the day, we were seeing lots of other hikers, the Petrified Forest Loop likely is the park’s most popular backcountry. We spotted a familiar looking hiker who asked us if we’d been on the South Achenbach Trail two days ago; it was the lone backpacker we’d seen on our first day. (South Achenbach Post).

2021 6-6, TRNP South Achenbach Backpack Trip

The South Achenbach Trail is one of the most remote trails in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Jean and I had tried several times previously to do this trip, but each time were defeated by high water in the Little Missouri River. The trail is isolated on the south side of the river, cut off from all the other roads and trails in the North Unit of the park, and requiring a ford of the river just to start.

Jean fording the Little Missouri.

In planning our Badlands trip for 2021 we noticed right away that it was a very dry year. By spring there had already been three major fires in the area, and we could tell by the stream gauges (~1.5’) that the Little Missouri River was already very low. When we got to the park, the river looked lower than we’d ever seen, and the rangers confirmed that we would be able to safely cross.

We spent our first day helping out the Maah Daah Hey Trail Association with their annual National Trails Day work event by surfacing (hauling and packing in gravel) part of the MDH trail just south of Medora. The next day we drove to the North Unit, arriving as the Visitor Center opened to get our free backcountry permit. We got the permit and an update on conditions (Hot and Breezy) and water (No drinkable water available) and left our car at the trailhead in the Juniper Picnic Area.

It was a short walk to the riverbank where we faced the biggest challenge of the trip. But luckily for us the river was only calf deep and the bottom was sandy and sturdy. The edges were muddy though, and our shoes and clothes were a mess after stomping our gear through the river bottom.

View across the Little Missouri River.

Our ranger had told us to bring a topo map, but we found right away that the trail on the ground didn’t follow the route on the topo maps. We immediately turned south to follow the river downstream through a pleasant open grove of cottonwoods, then across the bottom land to the base of the Achenbach Hills. Marker posts were few and far between, and a maze of bison trails (as is usual in TRNP) made the NPS trail indistinguishable from game trails. But there were just enough posts to get us to the mouth of a small draw then up to a patch of prairie on top of hill 2538’. Once out of the river bottom we enjoyed the best views of the hike across the badlands, at least until we reached the prairie when the wind blasted us. With pretty much nothing between us and the Rocky Mountains, the wind on the prairie tops here howls enough to buffet about even heavily loaded hikers. The trail posts remained far apart, the whole route seemed like a giant game of hide and seek.

The Achenbach Hills.

We lost the wind dropping into Park Corner Gully and began a section where we would traverse along the north face of the Achenbach Hills. Despite the lack of other obvious trail work elsewhere, in one grove we spotted a recently cleared blow down. There were a few shaded sections of thick juniper trees, and in one of those we got the surprise of the trip, another backpacker. This poor guy had started his hike in the same heat that we battled yesterday on our work trip (but without the frequent delivery of water and ice), and had spent the night just across the river from Juniper CG after stocking up with water at the picnic area. We would be the only hikers he would see on the trip.

Next up was the junction with a side trail to Achenbach Spring. I had only hiked this trail previously in 1988, and had no memory of whether or not I had visited the spring on that trip. In any case, the ranger was correct, there was no water to be had. An elaborate set of fencing, water pipe, and water tanks had been thoroughly disrupted by several generations of bison, leaving just a few muddy footprints. I got back to Jean at the junction just in time to save the other hiker the effort of hiking down to the spring.

Jean by a Petrified stump.

Beyond the spring we enjoyed some more sheltered walking and long distance views. The descent to the river was broken up by the series of badlands tiers that we’d learned to expect. River views were sparse though, and it appeared there was a substantial growth along the banks that might limit camping opportunities. Our hope was to camp as soon as we hit the river bottom, rather than at the ford, to shave off the distance we would need to carry our packs heavily laden with water.

View across the grasslands.

As soon as we hit the river bottom we ended up in a muddy stretch along a small creek. We reached the ford with no camping spot in sight. We both took long futile bushwhacks through the brush, then I spent a long stretch hiking back to the small patches of grassland above us without finding any good tent sites, though I did spot a long bone and other fossils weathering out of a layer of gumbo. Finally, we gave up searching, and I walked down to the river crossing looking for a spot where I could gather water. Looking further downriver I spotted a few sparse cottonwoods on a little bench above the river. Eureka! Here was a tent spot, cook spot, and nice bluff to watch the river from. We hauled our gear out to the site and made ourselves at home.

Watching the River.

Jean then found an old plastic planter that must have washed down the river, just the right size for sitting, or use as a table. Having this simple amenity made the campsite seem more luxurious, especially nice for sitting and watching the river. We got some water from the river, let it settle in a pot and then filtered some for the next day’s hike. We boiled the next potful for dinner, grateful that the low flow in the river gave us some clay in the water, but not the silt that a more vigorously flowing river would have carried. Despite our vigilance watching the river, and a huge number of animal tracks, we only saw one deer come down in the evening to drink.

Our tent site.

With no rain in the forecast, we didn’t use the tent’s rainfly, giving us a fantastic view of the night sky. Our nearest neighbors were likely 5 or 6 miles away in Juniper Campground, or snug somewhere in some remote Badlands ranch. Coyotes howled all through the night.

Evening Light.

The next morning, we planned an early getaway as the 90F+ heat was predicted to return by noon (after a forecast high of 77 for our inbound day). We pumped another pot of river water that had settled overnight, and then boiled another for our breakfasts. We would have about three quarts each for the long walk out.

Yummy cooking water.

After packing up, we made one false start to retrieve a precious water bottle that fell out of a pack descending the bluff by our camp. Otherwise, the return hike was the mirror image of our outbound, except for the cooler temperatures of the early morning and a slight change in course to correct a navigation error from the day before. The winds on the prairie were milder. I took a few more GPS waypoints on the return, hoping to strengthen my write-up for the trail in my guidebook. I also confirmed that no traces remained of the old tracks shown on the topo maps, and that the trail was not as mapped at the east end near the Little Missouri River. Even accounting for the need to re-sign the ford every year based on changing conditions in the river bottom, the significant issue remained that the trail is not signed along the mapped route between the river bottom and Point 2538’.

View of the Little Missouri River.

We found a less muddy, knee deep, place to cross the Little Missouri and were back at our car in the Picnic Area shortly after noon, with the heat still tolerable, and at least a splash of water left in our bottles. Jean’s boots had delaminated at some point in the hike, perhaps from the heat in our driving trip. Hiram had a large heel blister, probably a result of not being used to wearing his heavy hiking boots.

This would be our only visit to the North Unit on this trip, so we decided to drive the Scenic Drive, stopping at Riverbend and Oxbow overlooks to take pictures. We first drove the campground with the idea of spending the night, but even with several sites open, the afternoon promised to be too hot for comfortable camping. Driving out we were surprised to see two Texas Longhorn Cattle, part of the park’s demonstration herd. We’d missed the cattle on our last few visits and had begun to wonder if they were still kept in the park. Despite the midday sun we got good pictures from both overlooks. At Oxbow we could see far enough downstream to see the section of river just above our campsite.

Real Texas longhorns.

For the backpack trip I had purchased the latest copy of the TRNP Trails Illustrated map  and had noticed two “changes” to check out on the drive out. The first was a 0.4 mile connector from the Scenic Drive to the FS Wolf Trail. Though we saw no trailhead or parking for the connector, it looked like there was an old two track road in place that might mark the route. The second change was a trail from the prairie edge down to the river bottom just to the east of Oxbow Overlook. We saw no evidence of this trail, which was likely a mis map of an old pre-park route. We confirmed with a ranger at the North Unit VC that both changes were errors. 

View from Oxbow Overlook.