Riding the Maah-Daah-Hey Trail

This was written during the summer of 1998. The trail has been completed since this was written.

My wife and I discovered our limits this summer.

I had a day off, and my wife, my daughter, and I planned on riding our bikes across the northernmost 23 miles of the new Maah-Daah-Hey trail, just south of the north unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I mistakenly thought this entire portion of the trail was complete. We started 6 miles in on the Biecegal Creek road at Grassy Butte. We left the pickup there, and started north on the well-marked trail right after sunrise. Between us, we had almost 300 ounces of water, along with a first aid kit, 6 new inner tubes, and a tire pump. The trail was well marked for the first 1-1/2 miles, then the markers and the trail disappeared. We spent some time looking for the trail while slowly moving north, then realized that the trail hadn't been completed yet. It was still early though, so we started bushwacking our way north, following cattle and deer trails wherever possible, and riding cross-pasture when there weren't any trails going our way. The map wasn't very detailed, but it did show approximately where the trail would be when it was finally completed. We tried to follow the approximate route. There were two times when we had to drop off a plateau into one of those huge badlands draws, and ended up carrying the bikes through waist high buckbrush. This was interesting in short pants. Two other times the "trail" was washed out by high water, and we had to climb around the washout on steep vertical cliffs, dragging the bikes as best we could.

After 4-5 miles of this bushwacking, we found trail markers again, beginning at a pile of perhaps 200 markers which were obviously planned for installation through the piece of country that we had just went through. There is one huge chunk of National Grasslands out there without any roads. It was now noon, and 95 degrees. We had about half our water left, and had traveled about half of our planned route. At least now we had a good marked trail again.

As we were climbing the trail up the side of a butte, the girls were behind me a few hundred yards. I was nearly at the top while they were just starting up. I walked out on a point so I could watch them come up. They missed a turn on the trail, and I hollered at them that they went too far. As they turned around, they noticed a calf that was stuck in a small ravine. The ravine was about 5 feet deep, but narrow enough that the calf couldn't turn around and steep enough that it couldn't climb out. I went down, and between us we lifted the stinky thing out. He had obviously been in there for several days, as his back hips and ribs were sticking out like he had already been dead for a month. He was shaky and stumbled and fell, but when we left he was standing eating grass.

After helping Betsy, I noticed my wife seemed real red in the face and she was complaining of chills. I thought perhaps she was suffering heat exhaustion, so we sat in the shade for a half-hour, and she drank some water and had a snack. Even after that, she continued to be ill. She could only ride a few hundred yards without stopping to rest. After an hour, she seemed a little better, and we continued on, resting everytime we came to some shade. My wife's rear tire went flat, but we considered ourselves lucky, considering all the prickly pear cactus we likely flattened. It only took 10 minutes to replace the tube. We came to an oil well road about 2:15, and I decided that the girls had had enough.

I decided to ride out to Highway 85 on the scoria road, and left the girls in the shade. While it was only about 11 miles to the car following the M-D-H trail, I didn't know the country or the quality of the trail. I decided the road was a better bet, even though it was longer - about 8 miles to the highway, then 5 more on the highway over the summit and down to the bridge where the CCC camp (and the car) was. When I left the girls, they had about 1/2 bottle of water between them, and I took 1/2 bottle. We were in the bottom of a huge valley, and by the time I had ridden to the top of the plateau, I also knew what heat exhaustion felt like. I was experiencing chills, and my neck was cramping so that I could only look down at my wheel and not up at the road. As I continued to ride toward the highway, my mouth was so dry that it hurt to breathe, but I decided that I would not drink the rest of the water until I made the highway. Two miles before the highway I came across a ranch. I stopped to tell them about the calf and get some water. It turned out to be their calf, so they went down with a 4-wheeler to get it. On the way, they stopped and gave the girls a large jug of water. Just as I hit the highway, the rancher's wife stopped to pick me up, since she was on her way to Watford City. Nothing ever felt better than the air-conditioning inside that van. I am sure she must have had second thoughts about picking up a shaky, dirty, soaking wet guy that smelled like a nearly dead calf. She couldn't believe that we had actually made it through that country without a marked trail, especially in the heat. She dropped me off at my car.

I picked up the girls, and we gathered up the pickup and the bikes, and rinsed off underneath a hand pump at the CCC camp. By the time we drove home, I had drank a half-a-dozen sodas, a bunch of water, and some milk. At home I did two beers, four more glasses of water, and a quart of milk. I got up in the middle of the night and drank two more glasses of water, and had two more glasses of water, another soda, and a pint of milk for breakfast. I think maybe I was a little dehydrated. My wife was ready to ride the rest of the trail that we missed after a few days of rest. We are planning on doing that, but the temperature should be below 85. It is beautiful country, but hot in the summer.

Read a story on riding the south end of the Maah-Daah-Hey!