Initial Rock, Custer Trail, Little Missouri Grasslands, North Dakota

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For Roadtrip 6 we decided we wanted to explore our nation's grasslands.  These are public lands, but largely fly under the radar when people think of our public lands.  National Parks. National Monuments, National Forests, and BLM lands are more widely known public areas.  

For good reason.  They are not places for people to visit and enjoy.  Mostly they seem to be places where there are cattle and oil wells.  We have found some areas of great beauty, but boy do you have to work to find them.  Nothing is set up for recreational users, except hunters.   If we did not have a lot of experience dealing with our public lands, it would have been impossible for us.

And of significance, when you look at a map and see an area that is identifed as a "National Grassland," you learn that this area is not really what it seems.  Within the boundaries of the "National Grassland," is hundreds of smaller areas that arer private.  It is not like a National Park where the boundary means something.

Without our sophisticated equipment it would have been almost impossible for us to hike in these areas.  Identifying where we can do this took a ton of effort.  It took all of our five years of experience dealing with public lands to figure it out.  

For two nights we camped at Initial Rock.  This is a very interesting historical spot where Custer's army spent one night on their way to the Little Big Horn.  At this spot two of Custer's solders engraved their name on "Lucky Rock."

Now, Lucky Rock is not the official name of the place.  But seeing as how the two soldiers who engraved their names there survived the campaign, I think the name is appropriate.

The little memorial is actually nice, but we have doubts as to whether many people visit.  We don't ordinarily camp in places like this, but there aren't many options in these "National Grasslands," and we want to hike around the area where Custer traveled.  

The Department of the Interior has done a nice job of preserving this site, and protecting it.  The Initial Rock has a protective barrier, and several information signs.  We were here two days and saw several people go look at it--mostly hunters.

Little Missouri National Grassland: North Dakota

We have spent four days here.

We read that the National Grasslands are actually more accurately described as National Federal Government Buy-Back Lands.  A good thing.

In the 1930s farmers and ranchers settled land that looked promising, only to find out after a few years that the promising look was due to an atypical weather pattern.  Most of the time this land was borderline worthless.  So, the government bought it from them, to help them.  And turned that land into public land.

We have not seen anywhere near all of it, but from what we have seen these grasslands are rugged and dry.  They are actually northern deserts.  On the land we have seen the government leases some for cattle grazing (grrrrrrr) and some for oil drilling,  And it is a hodgepodge of public lands, private lands, and state lands.  We had a devil of a time figuring out which areas are public, so we could camp and hike on them.  One problem is that nobody has invested any money in good old fashioned signs.

We have detailed maps (thanks to Vicky's diligence), Public Lands apps, Google Maps, and my Garmin maps, so we believe we can do a good job of knowing where we are and where we can be.

However, it requires a great deal of diligence and effort. Maybe this is why these areas are so infrquently visited by people like us,

We had several nice nights here, and several nice (but very difficult) hikes.  There are, of course, no trails.  And the terrain is basically badland, meaning that small grassy areas are broken by deep ravines.  One does not go in any kind of a straight line when hiking here.

But it is beautiful, in its rugged way.  Here are shots of where we stayed, followed by photos of our hiking, and of some wildlife.  We leave tomorrow morning to head south. Somewhere south.

When it rains----head to a National Park

After a week at the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, we decided it was time to move on to find some of the National Grasslands in the Dakotas.

Problem:  Four days of rain were predicted, everywhere in the upper midwest.  The only way to avoid it would be to drive so far south that we wouldn't want to drive several hundred miles north again when the weather got better.  All that would accomplish would be unnecessary driving or not seeing the grasslands.

Vicky found an alternative--a National Park.  She found that there was a campground that had asphalt roads.  The rains were predicted to dump amounts measuring in inches, so we knew we did not want to get stranded on the dirt roads we usually prefer.  They would turn to a muddy mess, and we might be stuck on them for a few days after the rains stopped.

Frankly. I had never even heard of the Theordore Roosevelt, National Park.  Have you?  Not you either, huh.

It has an unsual feature--it is actually two areas separated by some 20+miles.  We stayed in the "North Unit."  As we later found out, this "unit" has less usage than the "south unit" because the southern one is close to an interstate.

The campground was perfect for waiting out the weather.  It was esceptionally quiet.  Well patrolled, water, bathrooms, trash collection---like a 5-star hotel.  There are spots for campers, and pull thrughs for the bigger rigs.  Being small, we could camp in one of the tent sites, which means we didn't hear the generators that the larger rigs had.

Here is our site:

It was cloudy and gloomy during our stay here, but we had books and movies.  We got out the first day for a short hike, the highlight of which was seeing, for the first time, wild buffalo.

See them in the distance in the next photo?

We also saw deer and, right outside our camper, wild turkeys:

In between thunderstorms, we took walks.  Came upon a shelter built by the CCC.  Still in awe of this 1930's depression-era program of the other Roosevelt.  Parks all over the country built by this program, and built exceptionally well.  It is always a treat to see a CCC structure.

Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge: Montana

Camping in spots like this is why we love this life.  Can you see our camper?

It is so beautiful, and we had terrific, and different, hkes.  

Here are our camping spots, followed by a few hiking photos.

We saw a lot of wildlife, including rattlesnakes.  Fortunately, we came prepared with rattler gaitors.