The DAKOTAS and Rocky Mountain National Park June 2020

COVID Trip #3 Badlands, Black Hills, Theo Roosevelt and RMNP

Badlands and Black Hills Photos

Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Devil's Tower and Rocky Mountain National Park Photos

Since I had a 2nd week of furlough that occurred during the month of June, Rebe and I thought it might be a good time to plan another trip.  All this planning happened after our last COVID trip which was the “see all of Texas” trip.  We wanted to do something that was similar but obviously we couldn’t do Texas again… well I guess we could but why not try and find something different.  

As I mentioned in a previous post or at least I think I did, I have this plan to see all 50 states and while trying to do this why not see a few National Parks along the way.  States that I know that are not high on my list are of course the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas cause…what’s in those places?  Well, South Dakota and North Dakota (maybe, I’m writing this on day 1) actually has some decent attractions but Nebraska and Kansas might not but I still want to say I made a trip to see them even if it’s just to say I went.

Our plan as hatched originally was to fly into Denver, yes a plane trip in the heat of COVID season, and then head north through Nebraska, and hit South Dakota, North Dakota, swing into Montana and come back down through Wyoming (maybe Yellowstone and Teton again) and then back out through Denver.  Maybe even fly out another city other than Denver if possible.  Upon quick consideration of the amount of driving this would entail, we decided that that kind of trip would be awesome if we had more days but with a 12 day itinerary that just was not going to fly.   We then pared it down to South Dakota, North Dakota and then back to Colorado as no one should spend an entire vacation driving. 

Day 1 

As Rebe worked into the night on the day before our trip was to begin, I was steady laying out the luggage as to what we would need for the trip.

We were up at 7 to catch our 940am trip to Denver. It was a curious event at the airport, people were pretty good at social distancing and the majority of travelers had a mask on.  We over heard one young lady “if they aren’t going to enforce mask wearing I’m going to take mine off.”  Yep, mid-pandemic, as numbers are rising sure… take your mask off, ain’t my funeral.  But honestly, what happened to looking out for your fellow citizen?  Folks are a bit selfish and probably more-so stupid. 

All in all the airport was good, Southwest Airlines has instituted a policy of leaving the middle seat open so at least there is a bit of space and less packing on the planes.  Everyone was respectful, but again the mask wearing was a bit suboptimal. People taking it off for extended periods or leaving their nose uncovered or the dreaded pulling the mask down to talk…wtf.  Denver Airport was more of the same, all in all about what we expected. 

The 6.5 hour drive from Denver to Badlands National Park area was generally uneventful.  We drove through the high plains area in Nebraska and stopped at a local Wal-Mart for supplies and were greeted by the nicest set of Wal-Mart employees on the planet.  Stopped again in lower South Dakota because we needed to stretch the legs and grab water at a 2nd Wally World.  We then continued onward and upward into the Rapid City area.  While in Big Bend last month Rebe found this awesome driving app called “Just Ahead” and it gives you detailed info on the area you are driving through so we opened that and listened as we got closer to the Black Hills and Badlands.  It ranges from geological information to historical information and even provides local information for items of interest that we were not aware of in the area. Example there is an Observatory north of where we are staying and as you can imagine this is prime dark sky territory for star gazing. 

We made it to our cabin around 730pm after getting some gas, sat around plotting for the next day and called it an early night. 

Day 2 Badlands National Park 

Always on the lookout for an epic photo, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to wake up before sunrise and head into the park and setup for a cool shot.  During summer time the sun tends to come up earlier the further north you go and being June, you know the season when the sun is up the longest, the sun was due to appear at 5:04am. This was a tough debate as to whether I really wanted to get up or just let this lapse and settle for a sunset picture.  We set the alarm for 415am and since we went to bed at 9pm it was almost enough hours of sleep to think this was okay.  415am rolled around finally and all night the wind had been howling and I had heard some rain hitting the cabin so I wasn’t hopeful that this was going to be a good morning for photos but I got out of bed and gave it a quick look. A rain storm was directly overhead and clouds covered the sky from end to end, back to bed was prescribed by the weatherman. 

We finally got up at 7am with the sun well into the sky and started to prep for the day.  First stop was at the local Subway (has anyone ever noticed that every small town has a Subway? I’d seen this before but the trip around Texas solidified this belief) to pick up a footlong sandwich for breakfast/lunch.  

Got to the park entrance around 830, scanned our “America the Beautiful” card (the annual pass for National Recreation Areas which we picked up at Lake Mead in March) and were on our way in to the park.  Just before the park there was an original homestead from 1909, one of the last of it’s time.  Since there are few trees in the area, homesteaders (Homestead Act read more about the US Homestead Act where people were given free land if you could make it for 5 years) built their homes into the ground.

Once in the park we stopped at the first overlook and had our breakfast, the first overlook is named Big Badlands Overlook and was the place I was planning to see the sunrise if the clouds wanted to be nice. It is a great place to start a visit and gives you a sense of what Badlands National Park is all about. 

Big Badlands Overlook

Next main stop was a parking lot for the majority of the trails in the park.  From this one parking lot you can access the Door, Notch, Window (DNW) trails and across the street is where you can find the start of the Castle trail.  Door, Notch and Window trails are all pretty short with the Notch being the longest at 1.5 miles round trip, so of course we did all 3. The views from all 3 were good but the Notch has a special treat for visitors with its log ladder that is used to get back up the ‘wall’ of the Badlands area.  Pics below with descriptions. 

View on the Door Trail

Entrance to the Castle Trail 

One of the views from the Notch Trail

Rebe coming down the Notch log ladder

Me going down with two cameras

After visiting the DNW area we moved further into the park to the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail which was viewable from a few spots on the Notch trail. This was a nice little boardwalk that rises 300 feet and gives decent views of the area.   

From there there were no more trails to hike but there were plenty of overlooks to view.  I won’t name them all but here’s a few pics from the best ones. 

We were both worn out from the previous day and we had quite a few hours to kill before watching the sun go down so thus a nap was warranted.  After awaking from the nap we headed in to the town of Wall, SD where we were staying and grabbed lunch at the famous Wall Drug (https://www.walldrug.com/) if you’ve been to Texas it’s like a Buc-ee’s without the gas pumps but with worse food as we found out.  It’s worth a visit to see it, but not worth the money. 

After our sad Wall Drug dinner we headed back into the park to view the Sage Creek Rim Road area of the park.  This is an unpaved and of course less traveled section of the park but I thought some of the views in this section of the park were maybe some of the best and decided that we should come back here to enjoy sunset.  While waiting for the sun to get lower in the sky we had time to visit the Badlands Wilderness Overlook and the Roberts Prairie Dog Town before heading back to the Hay Butte Overlook for Sunset.

Sunset was nice and the sky was looking promising for some star picture but it was not going to get really dark until 11pm and sunset was at 840pm.  We went back to the room to shower, then came back out at 11pm to enjoy the stars.  Stars were great and it was DARK so dark in fact we could not really see if any of the bison that were in the area earlier were sneaking up on us.  Rebe and I were just enjoying the stars next to a couple other late night people when a truck drives by and then circles around to check on us.  It was a park ranger making his nightly pass, he stopped and asked “did you guys notice that bull bison just chilling over there?  He probably isn’t a threat at night and just is curious as to what is going on but just be on alert.”  No sooner than he finished his sentence the bison started walking in our direction (not directly at us but much closer) and of course he just paused right in front of us probably 15-20ft away.  Shortly before the ranger walked up, I had heard what I thought was a bison snort and I asked Rebe if she had heard that noise. She was convinced that it was the other people at the lookout with us…yep she was wrong.  Anyways, the bison hung around for 15 more minutes and then disappeared into the night like the prairie ninja he was.

Sneaky bison

Day 3 Badlands National Park 

Also in the Badlands area is a relic of the Cold War, namely the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site.  This is where a set of nuclear ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) were housed, right off interstate 90 in plain view of anyone that drove by.  Granted they were housed below ground and with stupid heavy concrete lid but just sitting out in the prairie. The “Delta” set that was housed in this area has since been retired and apart of that retirement was to have them opened to the public to preserve the history and have a bit of show and tell.  The command post is also visible from the interstate in a nondescript building with the main command center in a bunker underground. 

Minuteman Missile Launch Site - glass cover is not standard of course

A bit of further research showed that on the way from Denver to Badlands we probably passed another set of missiles…

The plan inside the park for today was to do the only trail we did not complete and to finish the accessible roads that we could.  The trail was the Saddle Pass combined with the Medicine Root/Castle Trail Loop, this path starts at the prairie and scrambles directly to the top. The trail was good, the rim gave good views of the prairie below and the upper prairie gave more interesting views of the Badands.  Not a mind blowing hike but a worthy excursion if you have the time. 

View from the top of the Saddle Pass climb

Formations on the Medicine Loop

We drove through the park again, this time actually stopping at the Pinnacles Outlook which is the highest part of the park and stunning views of the Badlands.  Views are great here but like I discovered the day before I think the views at Hay Butte Overlook were better. 

Panorama from Pinnacles

From Pinnacles we headed down the Sage Creek Rim Road but this time all the way out the exit of the park.  We discovered more prairie dogs, many more bison and Rebe even spotted a tiny owl whose nest was in the ground with chicks. 

Burrowing Owl

Bison relaxing

More Prairie Dogs doing what they do

After leaving the park behind we headed into Rapid City to grab a pizza and salad for dinner and then over to the Black Hills where we would spend the rest of our time in South Dakota. Our cabin was in the town of Hill City and since we were at the cabin with enough time we thought we would go ahead and knockout Mount Rushmore.  We ventured over right before sunset, witnessed and “illumination” which makes it sound like they do a laser show but they just light up the monument with light and give a historic speech about the presidents. We hiked around the presidential trail and snuck a peek in the Sculpture Studio to see the model for which the unfinished Mount Rushmore is based on.  Yep, you heard right, Mount Rushmore was never finished…they got cheap lol. 

Day 4 Black Hills

The day started with leftover oven warmed pizza in the car while heading to the northern section of the Black Hills.  The plan for the day was to drive through Spearfish Canyon, basically a 20 miles road that goes from Savoy to the town of Spearfish. But before getting to the actual canyon section of the trip there were 2 waterfalls to visit along the way.  

The first waterfall was aptly named Spearfish Falls, it was right off the road and partially visible from the top, but a short half mile hike down a paved trail gave much better views.  Since it was still early it was not heavily trafficked. 

Spearfish Falls

Just around the corner from Spearfish Falls was Roughlock Falls.  This was a 2 level waterfall just upstream from Spearfish with a main fall and then a secondary cascade that was beautiful. This area was much more trafficked which I thought it would not be since it was more ‘hidden’ than Spearfish Falls. 

Roughlock Falls

It was now time to make the drive through the canyon, Spearfish Canyon is a limestone formation formed by Spearfish Creek over the last 600 million years or so.  It is a nice scenic drive with the canyon always looming over head.  Along the way there is a another smaller waterfall called Bridal Veil Falls, I swear they really need to come up with more creative names for waterfalls (I know of multiple “Bridal Veil” Falls).  There is also another trail called Devil’s Bathtub but we forgot our water shoes and did not want to ruin our hiking boots so we skipped that trail.  

Bridal Veil Falls

Spearfish Creek

After the leaving the canyon around 1 we decided to stay in the north and visit some other sites in the area.  First we drove over to see the Belle Fourche National Wildlife Refuge, it was this nice recreational area where everyone and their mother had brought out the boat for the day on the 8000+ acre reservoir. But the real star of the north was Bear Butte. Not really a butte but a mountain that was formed by volcanic activity many moons ago. It was previously covered in trees but a natural fire in 1996 burned most of them off but it’s still an amazing park so we decided we should hike to the top. This was a 3.7miles hike (round trip) up to the top of the mountain and back down, did I mention the 1030+ elevation gain? Not only was it a climb, a rainstorm decided come through halfway to the top.  We had our rain gear and were prepared but it did hamper the views at the top of the mountain, but the rain was nice enough to leave and we had a clear path down the mountain. 

Bear Butte, showing the fire damage from 2018

Rainy view from the top

For dinner we headed over to the famous town of Sturgis, yes the one of motorcycle fame where they hold the rally and it’s nothing but Harley motorcycles revving engines all week.  Well luckily it wasn’t rally week and the town was just another sleepy little town in South Dakota but there were a couple of bikers in town. 

From Sturgis we headed over to the historic mining town of Deadwood, of old western fame.  Again just another sleepy town but this one had quite a few more tourist crawling around due to the history and casinos now in town. 

Downtown Deadwood

That was enough for the day, so we headed back to Hill City to our cabin grabbed some ice cream at the local Dairy Twist and headed for the bed. 

Day 5 Custer State Park

First off let me state that Custer STATE Park should be a US National Park.  Now let’s get started.

We were up and at it early as usual and the plan was to visit Custer State Park, this is a South Dakota State Park that is mostly surrounded by the Black Hills National Forest on two sides and Wind Cave National Park to the south (why didn’t we go to Wind Cave, well it was closed due to a broken elevator AND the pandemic of course but mainly because of the elevator).

The park has a famous road that goes through it called Needles Scenic Highway, the road twists and turns through the park while viewing some of the greatest views of the park along with 2 tunnels that you can’t even put a bus through.  We started the day with Needles to take it the general sights of the park. 

Random rock outcrop

Cathedral Spires

More of the Cathedral Spires

Now as you can see this is a pretty epic place. I still can’t get over how amazing this place really is and how it’s only a state park.  Well at least someone is protecting this place. 

Funny story for when we got to the “Needle” on Needles Highway.  As you can see from the pics, most of the formations in the park are granite which of course leads to a lot of rock climbers hanging in the park.  Rebe and I are just out exploring the last tunnel and the Needle and we walk past 2 little girls in the back of a minivan who were the children of the rock climbers.  The girls had to be 4ish. I walked by them the first time and one of the little girls says, “I LIKE YOUR SKIN!”  Now, I don’t know how you would respond to that but being from the south I’ve learned sometimes you just don’t say anything. And so I carried on with my day, but then I walked by her again and she looked at me and said “I LIKE YOUR SKIN!”  This time, I knew she was really trying to give me a compliment so I replied “Thank you, that’s nice.”  Rebe was a few steps behind me and heard the little girls continue a conversation “…we have to be nice the the African Americans…”  Seems like this George Floyd incident is reaching households everywhere and thank goodness for that.  It was a really touching moment, and you really can’t explain slavery, “freedom”, Jim Crow, redlining, Civil Rights Act, and police discrimination to a 4 year old and expect them to absorb it all.  But good on those parents for doing more than nothing. 

The namesake of the road, The Needle

The first section of Needles Highway ends at scenic Sylvan Lake but our drive never made it to the lake.  While driving we were discussing what trail we were going to hike and did we really want to do a REALLY long hike or something short and hard?  We had found a trailhead for Little Devil’s Tower but from here there was an opportunity to hike to Black Elk Peak which is the tallest peak east of the Rockies.  We could do one or we could do both.  Rebe wanted no parts of either, so of course the long hike to Black Elk it was. 

Some rocks along the trail

I think this is the backside of the Cathedral Spires (there's two sections) but I'm not sure. 

The start of the hike to Black Elk peak was a slog, up all the way to Little Devil’s Tower, then down in to a gully where you could see the peak looming ahead and then the slow climb all they way to the top.  The views from the top were simply amazing, supposedly you can see 4 states from up there. 

View from the top of Black Up

The big square rock in the center is Mount Rushmore

The hike back down was of course much easier, and we found another detour on the route which was to the back side Cathedral Spires.  Apparently the 'Cathedral' is between 2 sets of rocks, makes more sense when you get down there. 

The spires

Then we were on the Little Devil’s Tower trail so of course we did the mile detour for that, this one did require a good bit of scrambling over some steep rocks but we made it to the top.  It was later in the day when we finally made it to the top and as we got there the only other people who were up there left and it was just Rebe and me.  It was nice having the summit to ourselves.  From there we finally made it back to the car after being gone for 6 hours (8.5 miles)

Pano from Little Devil's Tower, Haney Firewatch (Black Elk) on the right peak

Rebe atop the rock scramble

We drove into the town of Custer for dinner at Mt Rushmore Brewing Co and actually sat out on the windy open air patio for dinner.   Sadly we could only eat the bar menu and not the dining room menu but it sufficed. 

With still a little daylight left, we ventured back into Custer State Park to take a tour of the Wildlife Loop.  This is a road that circles the southern end of the park, which is completely different than the northern portion.  No craggy granite spires here, just rolling hills supposedly packed with wildlife.  Well it was raining when we drove the loop and saw mostly deer, a couple of turkeys and a few bison.  Not the grand show we were expecting so maybe the rain made the animals do a bit of hiding. 

Bison chilling 

Turkeys I somehow spotted

Deer with a baby fawn (right center)

Donkeys cause, well why not

On the ride home we stumbled upon the Crazy Horse Memorial, we didn’t know it was visible from the road but it is.  As you can tell it’s not finished and probably won’t be within our lifetimes unless the group doing it stumbles into a LOT of money. 

Unfinished Crazy Horse Memorial 

Day 6 Custer State Park 

Another day in Custer was the plan and of course that’s what we did.  We woke up later than we had intended but the plan was still to do a few hikes for the day.  But before we got started we had to refuel the bodies with a good breakfast at the Sylvan Lake Lodge, which is no longer located on Sylvan Lake but it does sit near the lake.  I think you could see the lake many years ago but the trees have since gotten taller. They had the dining room open but we’re still not cool with sitting indoors and eating so we asked if we could sit out on the back patio and they told us that we could. So we did.

Photo from breakfast 

After breakfast the plan was to hike the Sunday Gulch Trail, to me the word ‘gulch’ just does not give me the nice warm fuzzies. But that’s the name and so we went. The trail starts from the back side of Sylvan Lake and does a big loop through the woods up and down and up and down and up and down it went. It was a nice trail through the woods sadly it ran under some power lines only to remind you that you’re not completely out in nature and the trail also went along side the famous Needles Byway.  Nothing like a fat guy on a Harley to remind you that you are still near civilization. Overall the trail was nice and we finished up in a valley of rocks, rocks so big and treacherous that the park has installed hand rails to assist hikers going in and out of the canyon. Not that it was a help, we still saw a lady fall and that alone made her retreat out of the canyon.

The large formation behind Sylvan Lake

From the bottom of the Sunday Gulch

Rebe leading the way climbing out of the Gulch

Sylvan Lake

Lunch time had passed and nap time had arrived.  We stayed in the park but headed over to the Coolidge Mountain Overlook which was up a dirt road and to the top of the 2nd tallest mountain in the area. There they have built another fire tower to scan the surrounding areas for fires that start.  While atop the mountain we caught a 30 minute nap and then took in the surroundings before the rain storm swept in.  From the top you could see the edge of Mount Rushmore (edge = Washington’s face) and all the other surroundings like the Badlands and the Air Force Base near Rapid City. 

Yeah, cell towers...

Now that the rain was pouring even some hail came with it (side note: it seems hail is a common thing in South Dakota.  Our cabin neighbors mentioned that got pelted by hail on a motorcycle ride back from Wyoming, a hiker made a joke about hail while we were at Bear Butte, we had seen a couple of cars with substantial hail damage and then today we actually saw hail during a quick rain storm) and we were not going to hike in the rain so we needed to kill an hour or two before we would set off on our hike.  The new plan would be to see the Iron Mountain road, this is another road that the park build for tourist so they could see more of the park and to showcase 3 tunnels that cut through the granite all while framing Mount Rushmore.  To have one tunnel do it would be amazing, but 3 times now these guys are just showing off.  I will give it to these guys, they get a thumbs up for this one. 

Rushmore from afar

Tunnel 1 from Iron Mountain

Tunnel 3 from Iron Mountain (tunnel 2 in the photo album)

Around Center Lake in Custer State Park there are a couple of trails and we thought we would check them out and as a method to kill some time before our afternoon plans.  If you read the last installment you’ll remember me mentioning the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) and how they built a lot of things in the national and state parks. Well they were in Custer State Park too and built some trails around Center Lake, but at some point the park lost these trails and only found them 3 years ago. We thought we would give them a go out of our love for the CCC and because well… we needed something to do.   Sure there were other trails but why not give these some love. The trail was a nice walk through the woods with an offshoot that overlooked the lake, the trail then looped back through a previous section of forest that had burned many years back but was growing nicely again. 

The Lost Trail

Center Lake Overlook

After the trail we came home to eat leftovers from the fridge, you know the leftover bits that we didn’t finish while eating out (extra salad, half a sandwich, half an Indian Taco and 2 pancakes a true dinner of champions).  After eating we were going to go back to our favorite ice cream shop in town, how we make favorites in one trip is unknown and after ice cream we were going to go back to Sylvan Lake to catch the sunset.  As we were prepping to go Rebe noticed that she had misplaced the car keys, and the car was locked so that meant one of two things.  Either the keys were some how locked in the car or they were in the cabin in some unknown location.  Rebe was of the idea that she had somehow flushed them down the toilet, which I thought was totally preposterous as you’d hear keys against the porcelain before you flushed. Keys were missing, car locked meant we had to get a call in to AAA to get someone to break into the car for us to retrieve the keys.  While we waiting for the expert we again searched the cabin, the suitcases, the floors, inside the oven, outside the cabin, you name it we looked.  Even our cabin neighbors helped us look on the ground outside, finally gave up and assumed they were in the car.  Hour and a half later the locksmith/car breakerer (yeah I know it’s not a word) shows up and gets in to the car in 2 mins and we start rifling through the car and…no keys. Since the car was locked this definitely means the keys are in the cabin somewhere, we go back inside to reflip the cabin and Rebe goes to take off her jacket and notices that the hood of her jacket is a bit heavy…keys had been found.  We can only assume that after getting her coat out of the car, she locked the car threw the keys down on top of the jacket and the keys fell into the hood.  When she put the jacket on, she didn’t notice and thus was carrying around the keys the entire time.

That was enough for us so we went to bed after finding the keys. 

Day 7 Black Hills to Dickinson ND

After a long night of searching for keys only to find them hidden on Rebe's person we got another late start, I let Rebe sleep a little more than usual as she was wiped out from the hunt last night.   The plan for the day was to eat breakfast at Cheyenne Crossing which we had previously passed while driving through Spearfish Canyon a couple of days prior. The place had great reviews and it was in a scenic place so we thought we would check it out. 

We got packed, checked out and on the road for the hour drive up to Cheyenne Crossing.  It was a beautiful morning and as we pulled in the parking lot was pretty full for what I would consider a lazy Tuesday. We walk in masked up and ask if we can sit on the patio and eat and the hostess was a bit perplexed as to why we might want to do that and even made some gesture at our masks.  We then informed her, we’ll just take the food to go.  Another young lady, nice as can be took our order and in a jiffy our food was ready in 10 mins and she even gave us a recommendation of where we should actually go eat our breakfast.  

We drove 15 mins down the road, further into Spearfish canyon to a picnic spot built for the Black Hills National Forest called Long Valley Picnic Area.  Pulled in and no one was there, about 10 picnic tables along Spearfish Creek that runs through the canyon and had a nice quiet meal even had a chipmunk circling the table while we ate.

View from breakfast

Breakfast spot

Next was a stop at the Spearfish Wally World to pick up some supplies for the road and then we were off.  Next stop was Dickinson North Dakota (I forgot we stopped at the geodetic center of the USA) .  I thought the drive would be mostly rolling hills and farm land, but before we made it out of northwestern South Dakota we had come into this new set of “badlands,” but this time the badlands were topped with trees.  Apparently the government had set this section of land aside and called it Custer National Forest.  Don’t know if I would call it a “forest” but it was cool nonetheless. 

Geodetic Center of the USA

Custer National Forest

As we got in to North Dakota it was more farmland but the farm land was covered in this yellow flowering plant. A quick google search showed that the flowering plant was indeed Canola, you know the cooking stuff or stuff used for biodiesel. It was so pretty, here’s a cell phone snap shot.

Canola Field with windmills (from a moving car)

We got into Dickinson around 4, checked into our room, napped and took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.  We put in an order at the local Applebee’s for a salad, because well you need a little green in your life.  Can’t be eating PBJs and fast food everyday. We took our meal over to a local park to enjoy the nice weather and there were two community beach volleyball games going on and numerous kids with parents playing on the playground. COVID hasn’t really hit hard here (yet) so most of the things appear normal.  But we did see a couple of people with masks, but not a high number. 

Dairy Queen, did I mention DQ… well that happened after dinner.

Bison snacking in the parking lot

With the sun setting at 850, we still had time to head over to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  The park is right along I-94, it even has a rest area (yes, think highway rest area) and visitor’s center that overlooks a section of the park complete with roaming bison in the parking lot. We stayed for couple of hours watching the light from the sun getting better and better on the North Dakotan Badlands. 

View from Painted Canyon Overlook

Painted Canyon Sunset

Day 8 Theodore Roosevelt National Park 

It seems like lazy mornings are a thing for us and this one was no different, as we rolled out of the hotel at 9am after grabbing a couple of muffins and yogurt from the kitchen. The plan for the day was to hit the south portion of the park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) has three sections.  The South Unit is right off I-94, the North Unit is 52 miles north of I-94 and the Elkhorn Unit is somewhere in the middle but harder to access as the road is unkempt. The Elkhorn Unit is where Teddy’s ranch used to be, the ranch house is no longer standing so… I’m not sure what there really is to see there other than the area and some placards to tell you what USED to be there. 

The South Unit, as you saw from the previous day, is all North Dakota Badlands (I’m assuming the North Unit is too) but in the South Unit there are numerous overlooks and a couple of short trails.  There are some long trails, but they are 10+ miles and we don’t have that kind of time.  

The previous night while we were at the overlook we noticed a sign that said the park’s scenic loop road was closed.  This loop road is 36 miles of scenic vistas and trails that we were not going to have access to, seems like this was going to be a short day.  As we drove into the South Unit we (Rebe) stopped to speak to the ranger on duty to see how the roads were and to see what we could actually do since there was a large closure. She told us that the road actually opened up this morning and that most of the road was open except for the last 4 miles. The last 4 miles had a major collapse and probably wouldn’t be open for a year or more due to the damage.  Into the park we went. 

I will not bore you with the driving details but we did it all, well… all that we could.  Here we go in order: 

Skyline Vista - .25 mile out and back hike

Peaceful Valley Ranch stop for a short hike to the Little Missouri River

Passed some lazy bison on the way

Boicourt Trail and Overlook - short .5 mile out and back hike

Buck Hill - Trail that led to some good overlooks, wish I could have stayed at this location for sunset

Bison on his way to glory

Pic from the Coal Vein Trail

Coal Vein Nature Trail - 1 mile loop where we found a bison laying down on its side and breathing heavily.  We gave it some space so it didn’t freak out on us, but by the time we finished the loop the bison had passed :(

Old East Entrance

We did a hike to the old East Entrance where I guess guests used to enter the park.  The area was now a large prairie dog town and some old buildings (CCC built these too) in the middle of the park but no longer in use.  I tried to figure out where the road came from and where it went...even with satellite view I couldn't figure it out. 

And finally (on the loop) the Badlands Overlook.  Pics didn't turn out great so they didn't make the blog. 

We then drove back to the front of the park to speak with the ranger to inquire about the petrified forest section of the park. It was not on the main loop but down a separate dirt road one exit down on I-94.  By this time of the day it was getting pretty hot out, it was low 90s with the sun working extra hard to cook us thus the hike out to the forest was brutal.  Both Rebe and I were suffering. I will admit, I have a bone to pick with calling petrified forests “forests.”  Every time I think I see one of these wonders I have it in my head that I’m about to see some 30 foot tall trees that are made of stone.  NOPE, always rocks that look like tree stumps. Honestly either way they are cool and if you ever find yourself in a petrified forest don’t steal anything because if everyone stole a piece there would be none left eventually. 

Large petrified stump

Rebe for scale

When we finished the forest hike it was only 6pm and the park was a good 40 minutes from our room but we wanted to spend the sunset in the park again.  No point in driving to the room only to come back out. We decided to spend some time in the tiny town, Medora, at the entrance of the park.  We had a ice cream from Hatlee & Brea (don’t ask cause I don’t know) and the ice cream was stupendous. We tooled around while we ate our ice cream and looked at the local fare.  

With the ice cream done we headed back into the park to get in place for the sunset.  While driving in we stumbled on a herd of wild horses, then a lone bison and then a herd of bison making their way through the park eating everything in site.  We were stuck waiting on the bison for 30 minutes or so, which was good as we had plenty of time to kill before the sun was close to setting. 

Wild Horses from earlier in the day

Young bison messing around

Bison herd blocking the road

Finally we got to Wind Canyon Trail to setup for some pictures. I was a little disappointed with the location for sunset, I think it would be a better sunrise place but here is the picture anyway. 

Wind Canyon Trail Overlook

Day 9 Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit

Today was our visit to the North Unit of the park and since it was further away and probably less visited I though it would be a waste to drive all the way up… boy was I wrong.

I’ll skip the usual breakfast stuff as it’s not really that pertinent.  We arrived at the park around 11am and drove on in to see what this was north unit was all about.  Before we got to the park entrance, the road that leads to the park has a pair of pullouts that are for scenic viewing.  These pullouts were showing the potential of what was in the north unit, things just appeared bigger or more grand.  And this is what a ranger had told us the day before, but you know people have favorites and we thought she might be a bit biased. 

Early scenes in the North Section (before the park entrance)

So we drove in, saw a few pullouts and it was definitely different from the South Unit, the South Unit was badlands and the road just kind of meandered along the rim but it did go down into the lower prairie.  But in the North Unit it seems like this section was canyon sized and it just, I really can’t put words to how it was different in feel and views.  It really reminded me of what we saw in Palo Duro (from the last blog post). 

After a few pullouts we stopped at a pullout for a the Buckhorn Trail with no intentions of hiking this trail but to checkout the “Cannonball Concretions.”  These cannonballs are an oddity of compressed layers within another layer that appear after the outer layer is eroded away (I know horrible explanation).  Either way, these cool ‘balls’ pop out and are just really unique and interesting. 

Cannonball Concretions

Just across the road from the cannonballs was the Juniper Campsite but also a nature trail that goes along the banks of the Little Missouri River, the river that runs through all 3 sections of the park.  The nature trail had a little pamphlet at the trailhead that went along with numbered markers on the trail.  Each marker had a different story ranging from information about the trees, the grass, the formation you were viewing or a historic building that might be in view.  Really cool and informative for all ages :) 

Longhorns relaxing by the river

From the Little Mo Trail

When done with the Little Mo Nature Trail it was time for the big hike of the day, Caprock Coulee Trail.  4.1 miles of hiking, first through the juniper forest complete with its own nature trail signage like the Little Mo Nature Trail, then up on the upper ridge that bisects the park.  The trail then crosses the main park road, stops by the best overlook (River Bend Overlook) in the park and then heads back down the opposite ridge to the parking lot. 

I had heard about this trail from a photoblog and said the trail had some good views, and I was not disappointed.  The views were so good, Rebe and I sat at the top of the ridge for 20 mins or so just watching the clouds go by (and waiting for clouds to clear for better pictures). I can't emphasize enough at how awesome this trail was, if you ever happen to make it to North Dakota (why would you? Never thought I’d have a reason…) please visit the North Unit and if you’re in shape enough, hike this trail as it will be worth your efforts. 

The View we waited 20 plus minutes for

Quick stop at the Riverbend Overlook

The North Unit only has one road in and out, no loop the like South Unit and it is only 14 miles long.  The trail we hiked was about 6 miles in to the park, and we had to see the rest of the park.  There were two more major overlooks to view, the best one we had already viewed while on the Caprock Coulee Trail.  The last overlook was the Oxbow Overlook, aptly named for the shape of the river at the overlook. By the time we got to the overlook the weather had changed, and I blame this partly on a nice lady at the campground who waffled us to death talking about her children’s 11,000 mile road trip and her curiosity into what else we were doing on this trip.  I swear she talked to us for 20 mins and we just couldn't ditch her, she was nice so we didn’t want to be rude but she just couldn’t take a hint.   We finally made it to the Oxbow Overlook and one would think that the final overlook would be a crescendo for the park but the River Bend Overlook is nicer, that’s not to say that the Oxbow Overlook should be skipped it just lacks that pop.  Maybe it was the light, rain or the formation, dunno.  

Oxbow Overlook

Leaving Oxbow we headed back to River Bend Overlook to view it one more time and to just sit and enjoy the view.  Being later in the day, traffic at this part of the park had slowed and the rain we had saw at Oxbow had quickly moved on.  We spent over an hour debating how long we could sit there enjoying the view while I of course snapped a few pictures. It was still 2 hours before the 10pm (central time) sunset and it was tough to leave as while I think of these trips a photography trips they are not the sole reason we come on these trips. These trips are a getaway from the everyday, and an opportunity for us to see new interesting places, even if they are in North Dakota. 

While we were relaxing at the RBO, like I said we were alone for most of the time and every 15 minutes or so a couple or group would come down to the overlook and then leave.  But the best couple that came down was a youngish couple (sad I have to say young now as I now longer qualify) probably in their early 20s, you know the type...doing it for the 'Gram. The young woman asked boyfriend (poor fella) to take her picture and of course he took her picture and gave her her phone back. She reviewed the picture and all hell broke loose, "DO YOU THINK THIS IS A GOOD PICTURE?!  I LOOK SO HORRIBLE, WHY DO YOU THINK THIS PICTURE IS OK?  WHY DIDN'T YOU POSITION ME!? MY LEGS LOOK FAT. WHEN I TAKE PICTURES OF YOU I MAKE YOU LOOK GOOD." Boyfriend responded, "I'm not a pro photographer and you look fine."  Which of course she went in on him again basically repeating the same thing over and over again.  This went on for a good 10 minutes, and if she would have come closer to us I would have told the guy that I'm sure the picture was fine and that maybe you should get rid of her...  

Somehow I talked myself out of sitting there for another 3 hours and waiting for the perfect image that may or may not come and we headed back to our room 1.5 hours away. 

Panorama at Riverbend Overlook

Day 10 Moving Day - Devils Tower and Wyoming State Capitol 

Day 10 was a long day of driving, we drove from Dickinson, North Dakota to Estes Park, Colorado with a detour over to Devil’s Tower National Monument.  Devil’s Tower was the nation’s first National Monument in 1906, this is a status given to any federal land owned or protected by the federal government.  It’s like national park but I guess lower in status?  Becoming a national monument does not require Congress’s approval just the President saying “hey, we should save this.”

I had known about Devil’s Tower for quite a few years now, again through some random internet postings.  But this monument is in what I would consider no-man’s land, just not close to any other places other than the Black Hills.  And still from there it is a 1-2 hour drive depending on where you’re staying.  And if you don’t get there early there’s going to be a line as we found out today.  To make matters worse they were working on the parking lot so there was a LONG wait just to the parking lot. We couldn't afford to wait in the line to the parking lot so we just viewed it from afar.  It was still pretty epic but would have been much better to see it in all its glory up close. 

Devil's Tower from where we had to settle

Devil's Tower from afar

We continued south and drove by the Wyoming capitol building in Cheyenne, just to say I saw another capitol building.  It was larger than I was expecting for such a low population state, like I swear it looks larger than the Georgia State Capitol.

Wyoming State Captiol

Finally made it to Estes at 10pm after 11 hours of travel. 

Day 11 Rocky Mountain National Park 

Rocky Mtn National Park recently reopened and put in a reservation system with timed entry, we reserved our time slot as soon as we bought plane tickets to guarantee our early entry.  Entry for us this morning was going to be at 8am, hopefully this would be early enough to get to the good spot in the park before the crowd.  

RMNP is famous for the Bear Lake area (and obviously the Rocky Mountains) and how that area fills up quickly in the mornings.  The park has introduced a shuttle service to get other up in to the area, but since COVID is going around we’re not trying to get trapped on a bus with a group of half-masked hikers. 

Into the park we go and straight to Bear Lake we go…only to pass a sign that said Bear Lake FULL.  DAMMIT.  I’m still determined to SEE this part of the park so we’ll head up there and see it and maybe we’ll get lucky.  Well… we didn’t get lucky, park rangers up there waving down and telling them to turn around and thus we had to come up with a new plan.  A lot of the good/best hikes or at least the most popular ones leave from Bear Lake.

We drove back down the road and headed over to the Horseshoe Park area of the park more specifically to the Horsehoe Falls parking lot. Of course RMNP being RMNP parking was scarce over here too but we did find a place. We first viewed Horseshoe Falls and then hike up Old Falls River Road (which doesn’t open to cars until July) to see Chasm Falls.  A nice steady uphill climb to a decent waterfall.

Chasm Falls

We drove over to Hidden Valley to make lunch for ourselves and then we didn’t have any plans and didn’t want to drive over to Bear Lake only to be turned around again so we decided to drive the Trail Ridge Road. Trail Ridge Road is one of the highest paved roads in the US and reaches elevations of 12,126 feet at it’s highest point.  From the road you get numerous overlooks at the surrounding mountains of RMNP. 

Terra Tomah Mountain seen over the tundra

The Never Summer Range

We made it down the other side and stopped at Podger lake for a quick look and then went further down the road to Coyote Valley where numerous animals are usually spotted. Got on trail, guy told us about a big bull elk with 16 points.  Didn’t see it. On the way back we spotted a herd of elk 100 strong just coming through the woods.  Watched for 40 mins, then a moose runs by behind the elk.

Two young elk giving us the eye

MOOSE aka forest ninja

We leave to grab dinner in Grand Lake and just down the road there are 10 moose just munching in the field.  Come back to the elk at Coyote Valley to eat dinner and watch them.  Then drove the Trail Ridge Rd back to our cabin as it would have been 4 hours to go the other way around the mountains. 

Same young elk, just closer 

Another bull spotted after sunset

Day 12 Rocky Mountain National Park 

530 am is an early time, but if you’re a central time zone person it might not feel as bad…unless you have gotten acclimated to the time and you sleep like crap the previous night. I spoke about Bear Lake yesterday and today was going to be the day where we would rise early, with our 6am reservation and try to get a parking spot at Bear Lake.  

The morning started according to plan with us getting up at 530, eating leftovers for breakfast and promptly getting out of the cabin. We get 3 miles down the road and I realize that I didn’t even bring my camera bag.  UGH, quick U-turn to grab that and then it was again off to the races to get to the park. We thought we would be slick this morning and not go through the main entrance but take then secondary entrance to see if there was less traffic to avoid that 6am line getting into the park.  We get to the gate, not a single person in line and not a single ticket person at the booth.  I hear you asking, you mean you can get in the park for free?  Well…most of them do not close the gates at night but you are kindly asked to pay before you leave or later in the day.

The entire trip has been great thus far and one thing that has been missing has been a sighting of a bighorn sheep in the parks.  We saw some sheep in Badlands but none had a set of epic horns, just little nubs. As Rebe and I are getting ready and getting on the road she was telling me about this horrible dream she had, we were going to go through the park on the way to Bear Lake and of course spot a bighorn sheep and I wouldn’t stop and take a picture, maybe you can see where this is going.  We pass through the gate and are going slightly above the speed limit to get to Bear Lake and there are a couple of cars slowing on the road ahead, and then I spot a couple of deer in the field just prancing along.  “Oh wait, those are bighorns, LOOK AT THOSE HORNS!!!” I say. Rebe sees them too and yep I didn’t stop as Bear Lake comes before any silly sheep.  

We passed the parking sign and used to say Bear Lake lot full, it was off meaning there was still hope.  We get closer to Bear Lake and we run into to two ‘teenage’ elk literally standing on the road.

Young bull literally by the road

Further up the road we get to parking lots that are before the Bear Lake main lot and guess what… they are full.  See this is why I didn’t take the picture of the sheep. We approached the main lot and it was NOT full, but it was easily over 75% full and this is at 630am in the morning and it filled shortly after.  WHOO WHOOO, we made it.  We secured a parking spot, now only if we had a plan for what to do after we got a spot. 

We finally settled on a a hike up to Mills Lake and Jewel Lake, about 2.8 miles from the parking lot. The hike went past Alberta Fall and then Glacier Falls before arriving at the lakes. Hike really should just be a synonym for ‘uphill walk.’

Alberta Falls

Mills Lake

We got to Mills and had a decision to make, should we call it a day or can we tack on a few more miles and make the day interesting. If you read the last installment you’ll note that our lack of planning usually equals more miles.  From Mills we discussed a loop that would visit 5 more lakes before arriving back at the parking lot.

 

After leaving Mills Lake we hiked, I mean walked uphill to Lake Haiyaha.  Of course all of these mountain lakes are the results of glacial activity and Haiyaha is a great example of this.  The lake is surrounded by nothing but large boulders, not a normal shoreline in sight. Simply stunning. 

Lake Haiyaha

 

From there we made it to the main draw of the Bear Lake area, where ALL the tourist were shoulder to shoulder. Dream Lake and Emerald Lake.  Until this point in the hike we had not been around many hikers but we definitely found them at these two lakes. 

Dream Lake

Emerald Lake

After sitting at Emerald and having our 3rd snack break we headed back towards the car but with a quick stop by Nymph Lake and the namesake Bear Lake.  Neither of which appears special other than being on the trail with the other lakes. 

This was our longest hike of the trip and also most of the hike was above 10,000 feet in elevation. Every time we had to go uphill, which was quite often, it did take us a bit longer than usual.  I will say that every bit of the hike was worth it.  This section of Rocky Mountain National Park is very special and I see why it gets packed early and often. 

The evening was much more relaxed that our previous days, we went back to the cabin to relax for a few hours.  We came back out to grab dinner to-go and drove back into the park to see if any more bighorn sheep would turn up.  Of course the answer is no they did not come down to the meadow, but we drove around the area and found 2 bull elk munching on some grass.  There was also a family that got WAAAAAAY too close with their kids, we were ready to film them getting messed up by the elk but I guess these elk were more used to visitors and didn't feel the need protect themselves. 

Young bull in the parking lot

Day 13 Rocky Mountain National Park and home

The last day of a trip is always a sad day, with most of our plans already accomplished we thought we would do some exploring of the less traveled sections of RMNP. Checkout was at 10am and that's when we checked out and headed into Estes Park for breakfast we had our eye on a Acai bowl (just think yogurt) for breakfast but we passed this bakery that does Cinnamon Rolls and had to stop there.  The place actually was only open until 10am but the owner was still there and had 3 rolls left for the day and promptly sold them to us. Another gentleman came in right after us and got the absolute last item for sale. 

We took our breakfast to eat at Lily Lake, where there were many people and not a lot of parking.  We found a picnic table to eat our breakfast and the resident chipmunk was so aggressive in trying to get piece of our food.  I'm sure I had to shoo him away 10 plus times before he really got the idea that we were not going to feed him.  And not just shoo him while he was on the ground, he came up on to the table a handful of times too. See, this is why you don't feed the wildlife. 

Lily Lake

Continuing south on Colorado 7, the road that sort of marks the east side of the park leads down to the Wild Basin area of the park. Down in this section of the park you can find trails that can get you to Longs Peak, the highest mountain in the park and also numerous other trails to alpine lakes.  We didn't have time to do a long hike so we just drove down to explore the area, you know for the next time we come back and want to do something different. 

Creek by the a picnic area in the Wild Basin area

For lunch we actually drove back up to Estes Park to eat our Acai bowl that we had skipped for breakfast, also this gave us the opportunity to drive back through Big Thompson Canyon and actually see it.  We had arrived in Estes Park at night so we didn't get to see much of the canyon other that what the car headlights were lighting up.  And even then I could see much as I was focused on the road because it was VERY curvy.

After escaping Big Thompson Canyon we drove through Boulder to see the University of Colorado, I again have a thing for seeing different college campuses.  We grabbed lunch at T/aco for a "hold Matt for the rest of the day meal" and finally finished the day visiting my aunt Jen, my gran gran and family outside Denver before flying out.  We had a nice conversation out on the front porch wearing masks and sadly not hugging.  It was good to see them and makes me wish they were closer so we could hang more often. :)