The View Up North

On our full day in Medora and the national park, we slept in.  It wasn't intentional; actually, I hoped to wake up early and see the South Unit again around sunrise.  But since I was up late writing on the blog, that didn't happen.  That will be one of my regrets of this trip.  I should have set my alarm clock.

The late start helped Jeff get some work done before we headed up to the North Unit of the park around 10:00 a.m.  It's about 60 miles from one unit to the other, and in between the two units are National Grasslands.

The drive up Highway 85 was scenic, with grasslands and some private farms and ranches along the way.  Highway 85 North will take you up to Williston, North Dakota, where the drilling boom is occurring.  It's apparent that the boom is occurring:  Highway 85 is loaded with tanker trucks, construction vehicles and company management pick-up trucks going in both directions, and they're widening the highway to accommodate increasing traffic.  There are signs advertising jobs along I-94 and Highway 85 in construction and drilling.  We saw a few smaller drilling spots on ranchland as we made our way north.

The tiny spots on top are bison -
see picture below.

Before entering the North Unit, we stopped at a scenic pull-off to look at a large swath of bandlands on the right side of the road.  To the left was a large butte that towered over the highway.  Jeff and Henry used their binoculars to look for bighorn sheep, since a sign on the highway alerted that there could be bighorn sheep crossing the road.  Jeff has repeatedly called these signs false advertising, because we have rarely seen a bighorn sheep when those signs were present (Colorado Monument, Flaming Gorge, etc.).  Holding true to his theory, we didn't see any sheep.

The Northern Unit of the park is about the same size as the South Unit, but instead of a loop drive, there's a 14 mile road through this section that you take in and out of the park.  The drive is just as scenic as the South Unit loop.  The North Unit lets you walk among the canonball concretions - Henry climbed up on one.  Seeing the effects of water and wind on the sandstone is incredible; at the top, middle and bottom of buttes there are hoodoos, terraces and pockmarks.  In some places, it looks like there are small caves that Henry and I thought would be perfect homes for mountain lions.

Looking up at the ridge of buttes on our right, Jeff spotted some bison grazing at the top of a butte.  It was an incredible sight to see these huge animals silhouetted against the sky.  We wondered how they got up there.

Henry saw another bison rolling around in the dirt and running in a grassy area behind trees along the park road, but the trees prevented a good view of him.  We couldn't get pictures, but it was awesome to see the bison run off into a stand of trees.  Because of their size, you don't think of them as fast animals, but they can run pretty fast, around 30 miles an hour.

At the end of the 14 mile drive is a scenic lookout of the Little Missouri River and the surrounding badlands.  A sign at the pullout noted that when Teddy Roosevelt lived here, thieves stole his boat and he pursued them through the area and caught them.

During the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps provided jobs to many people by building roads and buildings in national parks and other areas.  The CCC built a shelter on one of the trails in the North Unit that has spectacular views of the badlands, and Henry, Ruth and I spent some time there enjoying the view.

Driving back out, we each got different views of the park even though it was the same road.  We saw broad spans of prairie and could see cattle grazing in distant fields.

We enjoyed our time in the North Unit and I'm glad we took the time to drive up and see it.  It was even less crowded than the North Unit - I don't think there were more than 13 other vehicles in the park besides us.  Great place to get away from it all.