Roughing it in the Back Country Part I

Today are leaving the safe confines of "Big Baby" and a civilized camp ground in Medora, North Dakota near the south unit of Theodore National Park. Here we have had Wifi - albiet sporadically, clean shower houses, a store and laundry facilities. From here we head to the north unit of TRNP which is more remote, and we will backpack a few miles and make camp in the back country and stay there for a night or two.
 I have never backpacked and camped out like THIS. Ken has. He is our fearless leader and luckily I trust him implicitly.
While in the south unit we have seen some beautiful scenery hiking up here. On Monday we took a 5.5 mile trek that took us over pretty rough terrain. We took off our shoes to cross a shallow river, climbed a rocky butte to a plateau that was flat and filled with prairie dogs who "barked" at us the entire time we hiked across their home.
As we crossed the plateau we saw a herd of deer running together, Karson spotted a snake (ick!) and we baked in the sun. We were prepared though. We wore hats, had packs with water, sunscreen and snacks.
Shade was sparse over the plain. Once across we found a patch of shadow under a scrubby tree and rested, eating pistachios and almonds and drinking from our water bottles.
Kolton and Karson ran ahead often. At one point they passed a turn in the trail and we had to call them back. If we had followed them on the path they had chosen we would have been hiking for an extra 5 miles at least.
As we descended from the plateau back down a butte we were getting tired. The rocky trail was getting hard for our "big mountain goat" Kalista and the temperature was in the mid 90's.
It started to get a little less fun when our trail led us to a muddy stream that had to be crossed in order to get back to the trail head. Ken took off his boots to test the depth of the muddy water. He sunk to just below his knees and we knew we could not cross there. So Ken took off alone upstream to find a better crossing for us.
At this point I was really crabby. (Kolton says I should save that line for a point in all of my blog posts, so stay tuned for that fun feature!)
Indeed Ken did find a nice rocky crossing for us less than a hundred yards upstream.
Our trail wound through cedars and across rocky passes to more plains and more prairie dogs who also yapped at us on our way back. The kids loved the prairie dogs and I have to admit they were awfully cute.
The kids are the best at sighting wildlife. While I was busy keeping an eye on the trail, Kolton shouted, "Look, buffalo!" Sure enough there was an entire herd of bison in the distance over which we would pass. It made me a little nervous to think that we were hiking over their grazing lands - and there was evidence that this was their home all over the place. There were no fences to separate us. The herd was just across the river, right next to the path that led us to the trail head.
Taking our shoes off once more to cross the soothing water, we made our way to the other side. The bison were just over a small ridge and we could hear their gruff breathing as we put on our shoes.

A short jaunt up the trail and we were back to Mambo and we climbed in a pumped up the air.

On our drive through the park yesterday we came across an enormous bison bull who was standing just a foot off the road. He stood there chewing his cud and calmly regarded us as we stopped to get a closer look. It was awesome to be able to get up so close and personal and see this magnificent beast.

We've taken a few shorter hikes in the past few days as well. I have been dying to see feral horses and by yesterday I had resigned to the idea that alas there would be none sighted by us. Truly at the moment that I had come to this very conclusion, we saw a small herd across a valley on an outcropping of rock. I was so excited! They were beautiful and majestic and free, and it brought tears to my eyes to see them.

As we continue on our journey I'm trying not to cast any predictions or prejudice upon our plans, but to simply be in the moment. The next leg is about to begin and we are loading up and heading to the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt shortly.