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| Monday, June 17th |
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On our night in Fargo we had some great Indian food at the Passage to India restaurant, but otherwise Fargo was kind of boring. It also gave us some bad vibes - random people screaming at us out of cars as we walked along the city streets didn’t leave a great impression. No problem, we ate breakfast at our hotel and got on the road, albeit a little later than planned. |
Since we were departing later than planned, we changed up our itinerary so we would go straight to the South Unit of
Teddy Roosevelt National Park today. We arrived there at 12:45 (we switched to Mountain Time, which helped!).
The weather was cloudy and rain was forecasted, but we were hoping we would avoid the rain.
After talking with the rangers, we decided to do the
Big Plateau and Elkblom trail, a 5.3 mile hike that is supposed to give the best examples of geology, vegetation and wildlife related to the South Unit. We set off around 2:15.
The trail starts and ends with wading across the Little Missouri River. Since we hadn't planning to do this hike, this left us in a bit of a quandary - we didn’t have water shoes, so we just took off our hiking boots and socks, rolled up our pants and headed out. The water wasn’t too deep, a couple feet, but it was cold, the current was swift and the rocks were sharp. It took us a while to get over but we were successful.
Once we made it to the other side a couple approached us. The guy told us that bad weather was approaching and we should turn around now and get to safety. We thanked him for the advice and pulled out our weather app to look at the radar - it looked like we would get some rain, but that the main (and bad) parts of the storm would be a bit west of our location. We decided to press forward. Soon it started to rain quite hard, and now a number of groups were returning (some running) to the trailhead. Thunder was crashing in the distance. We again consulted the radar and decided once more to press on. It started raining harder, but after about 10 minutes the rain stopped…. and we had the trail to ourselves. We were thankful that we had rain gear, weather apps, and a bit of luck.
We couldn’t get over how beautiful and interesting this trail was. The rocks were multi-colored, including pretty shades of red-brown. There was greenery everywhere, yellow, purple and red flowers. And then there were the prairie dogs - hundreds of cute prairie dogs, popping out of their holes, sometimes running up to the trail to sit on their hind legs and sing for us. Cindy wanted to take one home... some pix below:
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| Mr. Bison not looking welcoming |
We were quite slow in our pace, since we had stopped for a while to consider whether or not to turn back, and we had put on/taken off our rain gear multiple times. We picked up the pace and took the turn on the Maah Daah Hay trail, which is part of the loop we were supposed to do. We were just about three quarters of the way done, about a mile before where the Maah Daah Hay trail meets with the Elkblom trail, when we turned a corner and saw a large brown object in front of us. Was it a horse? A mule? “It’s a Bison!” Cindy whispered in my ear. The bison had been eating but now looked directly at us. What to do? I put my arm around Cindy and told her to start backing up slowly, which we did. The bison continued to look at us menacingly. Cindy started to panic. Thoughts are rushing through my head. Why had I left our bear spray in the car? I remembered the sign at the visitor center that said bison are twice as likely to charge as bears, and there is little you can do if they charge - doh!
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| Surveying how to navigate the bison |
We continued our slow walk backwards. When we got about 50 yards away, the Bison went back to eating grass. Whew! Cindy calmed down. But now what to do? The bison was literally straddling the hiking path we were supposed to follow in a narrow section with buttes on both sides, so there wasn’t room on either side of the trail to safely walk around the bison. It was getting late and walking 3.5 miles back didn’t seem like a great alternative. We climbed up the butte to the west so we could get a lay of the land in relation to the bison. We saw a route up the eastern butte, on the other side of the trail, that would require some bushwhacking but would allow us to go around the bison. We knew there were rattlesnakes in the area, but we figured a rattlesnake would be easier to deal with than a bison.
We climbed down the west-side butte, and proceed to hike up the east side butte to follow the route we had planned. The bushwhacking was harder than we anticipated, and it took us quite a while to figure out a route back down, ahead of the bison. The bison spotted us as we started heading down, now about 50 yards ahead of him, but he was now laying down and seemed to realize we meant him no harm.
We got back on the trail. It looked like another storm was approaching, so we picked up the pace. The chirp and activity of the prairie dogs motivated us to keep moving along. A few pix below of this stretch on the Elkbom trail below:
We made it back to the river crossing, and this time kept our socks on, which made it much easier to cross over those sharp rocks. When we got back to the car, we realized this had been an incredible adventure - what a fabulous hike! - and Cindy decided to celebrate with a swig of Dulce Vida. Truly a day we will always remember. It was now about 5:30 p.m, so we left the park and headed to our hotel to check in and prepare for tomorrow’s adventures…..
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