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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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| Storm damage at our hotel. |
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| Storm damage. |
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| 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.
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| My new ride. |
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| Prairie riding. |
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| Pristine Singletrack. |
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| The tunnel under I-94. |
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| Our sign by the railroad tunnel. |
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| Riding through the badlands. |
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| Beautiful Badlands. |
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.
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| Part of the Medora fire area. |
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| Junction of the Buffalo Gap and Maah Daah Hey Trails. |
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| Riding into Medora. |
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.
