Medora, North Dakota (State #36)-Medora Campground

MAY 13-15, 2016

We finally made it to North Dakota! But our time here was short so we had to pack in the fun rather quickly.

(Painted Canyon near sunset as we drove in)

Both days here would be spent in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The first day we drove from our campsite at Medora Campground a little more than an hour away to the North Unit of the park. The park ranger said it was the most beautiful side and he was right!  (Sadly the pictures never do it enough justice because you just can't see all the different colors in the formations)

 We first stopped at River Bend Overlook and had lunch.

Then checked out the Cannonball Concretions. These were formed when minerals from groundwater cemented together sand grains from a long ago river. Pretty cool, eh?

Then we started off on our hike on the Caprock Coulee Trail. For those wondering (as I was) what a coulee is, it means “a deep ravine”. We saw many beautiful vistas and hiked through several different terrain areas. We started hiking through grassy areas, then across the ridgelines,

and then through a bushy area where we found these funny looking pimple leaves (that's what we called them).

AND THEN.... DUN DUN DUUUN... We came upon a bison while down in a valley. We walked a little closer to the bison to see where he may go and decide if we could continue on the path. What we didn't notice as we were watching the bison ahead, was that four more bison came up behind us and then blocked our way to retreat on the path that we had entered the valley on. Since it was a valley, giving them plenty of room was a little hard to do. Our best choice was to climb up the thick brush covering the walls of the valley and that is what we did.

We made it up high enough and began our next task which was trying to navigate our way back to the trail. That would turn out to be difficult as well but eventually we made it close enough to sneak behind the bison and jump back onto the trail. Phew! 

(The bison finally turned the other direction so that we could get on that trail

 that heads off into the woods to the left)

I'm not sure how we made it through all that brush without a snake bite or becoming tick infested but we did.

The next day we checked out some of the North Unit and then the Painted Canyon Area. Along the roads of the North Unit we saw wild horses,

huge prairie dog towns

and a bison right at the road's edge. It's not so scary from the car! Haha

Then we did a short hike along the Wind Canyon Trail with an awesome view of the Little Missouri River.

At the Painted Canyon area, we went on the Painted Canyon Nature Trail. We were short on time to get back and check out of the campground on time so we moved fast. This is a moderate 0.9 mile trail loop. The first half is non-stop steps down from the rim. So can you guess what the second half is?? That's right, continual steps back up to the rim! Surprisingly, we completed this 45-minute trail in 22 minutes!

We made it back to the campground and pulled out right on time to our next stop just across the border in Wibaux, Montana.