Friday 6/28 recap
Today we made our way from our campsite in Dickinson, ND to the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This 1.5 hour journey seemed like nothing after the long drives in the Yellowstone/Teton area. Unlike those drives, this one was rather – boring. No offense to North Dakota! But, like much of Northern Ohio, it’s somewhat monotonous.
That all changed, and drastically, when we entered the National Park area. The Badlands popped on both sides of the roads, and we got excited for what was to come.
TRNP receives only 800,000 visitors a year, split between the two major units (North and South). The Southern unit, being close to a major interstate, obviously gets more visits than the Northern. Anyone skipping the Northern Unit is missing a lot!
The landscape, for lack of a better analogy, seemed right out of a Star Wars set (Karen’s observation. I was so proud of the nerdiness of that thought!). Other-worldly. The park is bisected by a river which has torn a gash through the surrounding hills. That in and of itself is nothing unusual. However, the exposed valley walls (minus seismic activity), are striated with almost perfect layers of different materials. The colors were fascinating!
Much of the exposed rock is sandstone. These layers have obviously worn away more quickly than the other, harder rock layers. This difference in erosion leads to incredibly strange formations. “Tables” of hard rock supported by receding layers of sandstone. Liquid cliffs pour down onto the flat valley floor. Cracks and fissures and holes dot the valley walls. It is a truly wonderful sight.
We had fun on a short “nature trail” which included a guide with several stops. We learned that the Prickly Pear Cactus is prevalent in the park, and we sure did see evidence of that. We also learned some of the history of THNP and how much of the road system and many of the buildings were constructed in the 1930’s and 1940’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. We are all beneficiaries of that labor.
We did two short hikes, each offering us different vistas of the valley and surrounding lands. By the time we got to the second, uncalled-for rain attempted to ruin our day. It did not. We had packed raincoats so we were unmoved by the attempt.
We could not have been more pleased with this little, out of the way, national park!
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