The North Unit

We had the MOST magical day today. The North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park is actually separate from the main (South Unit) park. Sort of like how Kolob Canyon is separated from Zion; the North Unit is about 70 miles away.  I don't know how many fewer visitors there are to the North Unit, but I'd say about half as many, based on the number of cars we saw. The South Unit gets about 600,000 visitors a year. Compare that to Sequoia & Kings Canyon (our Spring Break adventure) which gets twice that many (1.2 million).  

We've been reading this book I mentioned earlier, The Hour of Land, and part of the section on Theodore Roosevelt Nat'l Park centers around its location near the Bakken oil fields.  In the book, you learn from the former Park Superintendent that much of the park management is dealing with the oil companies and mineral leases that are adjacent to the park boundary. Oil. Sigh. Is there a trickier topic? Ha! Of course there is. ;) Don't worry, there won't be a lecture on oil independence or conservation, only on the topic of the duality of this place. It's not lost on anyone, I imagine, that this park is named for an individual who had land conservation on the mind, and it faces daily assault on its front lines.  So I guess we travelled today with trepidation for what we would see. 

What we saw was stunning. In a good way. 😉 It's far greener than the South Unit, and while the overall geology is the same, the Little Missouri has a bigger presence, and atop the plateau is one giant rolling prairie. 

One geological wonder we saw was called "cannonball concretions". Through time and pressure, sediment, and magic, these round spherical stones sort of burst out of the hillside. I mean, there's no actual magic, but they aren't entirely sure how it happens, and the phenomena is specific to this area of the park. 

Throughout both units are coal veins (the black horizontal stripe).  There are coal vein fires, some popping up after the extreme heat (it was 100 degrees today!), and others have been burning for decades. 

As it was hot today, we didn't do any hiking. In fact, the short walk to the overlook just about did us in. We recouped in the shade of a shelter (built by the CCC in the 1930s), and had a chat with a nice ranger from Alabama. The view of the valley floor, where the Little Missouri winds around, is truly breathtaking. It's true American West, and easy to see how anyone could fall in love with this land 

We LOVE selfies. Actually we love remote pictures, because they always include high comedy, but we settle for selfies. I have slightly longer arms, and am almost always holding the phone. I try and get something interesting in the background, and make sure we're both in the frame. Almost 100% of the time, after I take the photo, there's a small comment from my travel partner: I think you cut off my chin.  Whoops! 😂

From the overlook we traveled to the top of the plateau. It's a flat meadow with prairie grass, wild turkeys and a few trees. As we pulled into the end of the road turn around, we heard thunder. Very quickly, our 102 degree sunny afternoon turned dark and stormy. Lightning, rain and thunder blew in from the....honestly, who knows which direction. 😂  We maneuvered our car out from under the tree, and had a great time waiting out the storm during our car picnic. The temperature dropped about 35 degrees and fierce wind shook my big Jeep. It was exhilarating! They get about 16 inches of rain A YEAR (!!!) here, and we got to be here for at least one of those inches. After the storm rolled through, the prairie had this magical air about it. The colors were different and everything seemed alive. 

Our park adventures feeling full and complete, we turned around and headed for the park exit. It's when you're least expecting it that sometimes magic happens. Perhaps because of the storm, or maybe the lower temperatures... Who knows? An up-close bison encounter of about 30 as they were on the move from one side of the park to another. 

Very happy sigh. We took a last look at the Little Missouri, found a flushing bathroom (hooray!), and headed home. 

We went "home" through Watford City, which is on the edge of the Bakken oil fields.  As expected, there are many plats with pumpjacks and flare towers, "neighborhoods" where people (presumably mostly men) live in storage sheds and semi containers, and lots of heavy trucks and overall grime. It's certainly not pretty. But I drove there in a Jeep filled with gasoline. I drove 1,000 miles to get here, and will go back where, while trying to make responsible choices, I understand I'm not making them all. There are no easy answers. 

I will leave you, tonight, with a TR quote from 1910 that seems oddly profound in light of what we saw today. 

"Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."

#findyourpark