One Day in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

on this episode of Sloan's Wilderness Expeditions we spend a day experiencing the scenery and the wildlife of North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park come along as we see what made this park so special to the man that became known as the conservationist president [Music] hey folks we've made it to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park first time ever here obviously we scheduled one day to explore this park we'll see how much we can see right now we're at the painted Canyon Visitor Center so let's check out what kind of views we got Theodore Roosevelt came to the Badlands of the Dakota territory in 1883 looking to hunt the big game of North America before they disappeared his time here opened his eyes to the over hunting the over grazing and the loss of habitat for these animals the fuse over the painted Canyon are pretty cool no doubt about that I hear that the north unit which is like 50 miles north has the best battling formations in some of the best Trails so that may be where we end up finding ourselves eventually today [Music] after leaving the painted Canyon Visitor Center we drove through the small town of Medora to reach the scenic drive through the southern unit of the national park keeping an eye out for wildlife [Music] after being elected the youngest president in American history in 1901 Theodore Roosevelt began working on his conservation Legacy during his two terms he created the United States forest service and established 150 national forests for national game preserves five national parks and 18 national monuments by enacting the 1906 American Antiquities act he also established 51 national bird reserves which would later become today's national wildlife refuges the most iconic animals in the park are the prairie dogs and the Bison the more hard to find Wildlife includes bighorn sheep and elk and occasionally deer and pronghorn but what we've found most interesting was the Wild Horse population these Mustangs are a remnant of the Open Range ranching era when ranchers let horses live free on the Prairie and only rounded up a few Offspring for ranch horses each year after the establishment of the national park years were spent trying to round up the wild horses but some always eluded capture finally in 1970 Park policy was changed to recognize these horses as part of the historical setting [Music] time was quickly getting away from us and this Southern unit of the park was just a little too busy for our taste so we made the drive up to the north unit of the National Park we're at the stone concretion area just going to check out some really interesting rocks it's right along the Buckhorn Trail and the Buckhorn Trail is like 10 or 11 miles long we don't have time enough to do that especially the middle of the day in the heat but we are definitely going to check out at least a little bit of it just get an idea of what it's like on this landscape here at Theodore Roosevelt National Park so these are called Cannonball formations yes they are and you can see why and they're all over the wall here just slowly eroding the way out huh yeah these Cannonball formations were created by mineral-rich water deposits as it seeped through porous sediment layers the minerals Act Like Glue binding the sediments and forming concretions they form in many odd shapes but even scientists are baffled as to why some form into spherical cannonballs so check this out these are kind of like the small versions of The Cannonball concretions really cool things a catfish what do we do with these leave them in place that's right you do not take stuff from our public lands or national parks and stuff leave them here where you found them for others to enjoy as part of the leave no Trace principles you leave them because if everybody took just one little thing to take with them as a souvenir it wouldn't take long before they would all be gone leave no Trace yeah this whole wall here has got some really cool formations Beyond just the Cannonball formations just got a lot of neat erosional type structures a little exploring here while I've got the chance [Music] I'm ready from the rain I bet that would be really cool when it is for any water's flowing through it so catfish what can you tell me about the plant life out here that we're seeing right now what kind of stuff are we seeing here lots of uh yellow Sweet Clover and some Sagebrush type looking stuff so that's kind of what's dominant isn't it yeah what kind of wildlife might we find out here in this maybe some deer or some fog horns or some bison as mentioned the Buckhorn Trail is an 11 Mile Loop through Badlands and Prairie ecosystems and it is a trail that can be backpacked and wild camped in the back country if I ever find myself here again that is something I would love to try there was a creek yesterday [Music] all right we only did maybe a mile and a half here on the Buckhorn Trail coming from The Cannonball area um I say we are late in the day and I don't have time to do full Trails right now we're just here to get an idea of what Theodore Roosevelt is about and it's pretty sweet I gotta admit I do like it it's got some interesting um terrain interesting plant life and animal life and we're enjoying it [Music] oh ran across this cool little cubby hole here in the rocks it's just some of the coolest formations on it [Music] yeah you can see layers of what I assume would be iron we continued up the scenic drive of the north unit taking in the scenery and of course stopping at all of the overlooks we're now at the river bend Overlook supposed to be one of the most iconic views here at Theodore Roosevelt [Music] [Applause] [Music] interesting fact this view that we're about to go see is one of the main reasons this became a national park obviously Theodore Roosevelt had his Retreat here and loved this area so they didn't know it was going to become a state park a recreational area or a national park so um the CCC came in Civilian Conservation Corps and they built this Little Shelter here on this overlook and it really kind of helped them decide which direction to go with the park foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] we have come to the end of the scenic drive here in the north unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park we are now at the Oxbow overlook it is something to behold foreign [Music] our day in Theodore Roosevelt National Park was really just an extended leg stretcher during an even longer road trip but I loved what we saw and would happily visit again the national parks 2 units are also surrounded by the little Missouri National grassland which is the largest national grassland in America encompassing over one million Acres so it only made sense to spend the night here as the grassland has many small campgrounds we chose the summit Campground as it was the easiest and quickest to get to and had a trail that offered some views we are in the summit Campground here in the little Missouri National grasslands this little spot here is only a couple miles south of the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and it looks like there's only like three sites here and it appears to be a free dispersed camp area primitive camp area and uh yeah it's perfect it's got a little bit of road noise because we're only about a thousand feet or so away from the Highway 85 but we're used to road noise from spending nights in rest areas and such it looks like there's some trail here in the area and uh looks like there could be some viewpoints we're going to check out [Music] all right we had us a little bit of dinner at the campsite tonight some really simple things but now we're coming out here to get us a nice easy sunset [Music] thank you

Channel: Slone's Wilderness Expeditions

Views: 2,036

Keywords: hike, camp, outdoors, backpacking, travel, vlog, hiking, adventure, scenic, family, theodore roosevelt, national park, north dakota

Id: N2ziQykgpyI

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023