Hiking the nine mile loop--that stretched into ten miles

With no electrical hook-ups, we are doing a better job of going to bed when it gets dark outside. But up north in the middle of the summer, it doesn't get dark until well after 10:00 p.m. Likewise, the sun rises early and we are up to see that spectacle for the second day in a row. We're standing at the beginning of our hike with the sun just rising over the badlands.

Today's hike is the Lone Tree Loop in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It is outlined in yellow on the map at the trailhead. There are shorter hikes, but this one will take us deeper into the national park wilderness area, and we're hoping that will allow us to see more animals.

The very first part of the hike forces us to cross the Little Missouri River that runs through the park. You can't go over it, you can't go around it, so we've got to go right through it! We rolled up our hiking pants and took off our hiking boots and started wading.

It's a good size river with a fast current, and Denisa was glad to have her hiking stick for balance as it got deeper.

Once across that obstacle, we had to get dried off to really start today's 9-mile hike. We have great weather as we go up and around the ravines.

It's green and lush here in the wilderness, as they've gotten more than usual amounts of rain this summer.

As we climbed out of the last canyon, we were suddenly in an open prairie. More surprisingly, our trail was leading us right into the biggest herd of bison we have ever seen!

It was amazing to see so many bison spread over such a beautiful meadow. The herd was just stirring this morning.

It's spring, and many of those bison were new calves.

As we looked up our trail, it was pretty obvious that we weren't going to be able to follow it. This is a big herd, so we can't go through it, we can't go over it, we'll have to go around it.

Many times Mark runs an "All Trails" app that tracks our progress on a trail. The red line shows our path as we made a major detour from the usual dotted line of this section.

Our detour took us right through a prairie dog town, and they weren't crazy about us breaking into their early morning routine. It's amazing all the different sounds that these guys can make as they communicate to each other about unwanted visitors.

This especially rotund prairie dog seemed friendlier than most as he watched our progress around the bison.

We're giving the bison herd a wide berth as we circle them. We don't want to anger the bulls, or panic the mothers with their new babies. It was inconvenient to walk the extra half-mile, but it was worth it to get to experience this little piece of what the Montana prairies used to look like before the bison were almost hunted to extinction.

Curiously, among all those bison we spotted this single pronghorn.

One of the fastest land animals, we watched as he bolted when he caught sight of us.

We saw another group of three pronghorns as we made our circle around the bison. It's fun to be in the wilderness!

We're now back on the trail, looking back over the herd. This trail is marked with 4x4 posts, and we can see one right in the middle of the picture below (and right in the middle of the herd).

As we climbed higher on our loop hike, we would look back at the herd on the prairie in wonder. Mark counted over 300 bison, and it feels like we have wandered into another of God's wonders today.

The scenery around us keeps changing. We still see some of the sandstone sculptures that are most recognizable from the badlands.

Then we spent time among the trees, where we found these three large chunks of petrified wood as evidence that trees grew here a very long time ago.

Then the trail took us through a tall grass prairie that seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon.

After seeing hundreds of bison early in the hike, we found almost no wildlife deeper in the wilderness. So Denisa has to take pictures of wildflowers when she doesn't have animals.

The wild roses are a beautiful color here,

and the prickly pear cactus are beginning to bloom.

Some of the most interesting things we saw growing on the ground were sprouting through the bison dung we found in the prairie. Mushrooms obviously love a good bison chip.

Mark wanted a closer look at a big rock column in the distance, so he did some hiking off the trail to get a closer look. It looked like a big petrified wood log. But closer examination proved it to be the hard horizontal rock we see dividing the sandstone layers here in the Badlands.

He knew his wife would enjoy this close-up look at the flower growing right beside the rocks, so he snapped this picture. He was right!

We knew about the wide river crossing at the beginning of the trail, but we didn't know about the four creek crossings in the middle. With more water than usual this summer, the crossings were wider and muddier than usual. No pictures of most of them because we were in perilous positions trying to keep our feet (and bodies) as dry as possible. We appreciated this little bridge on the fourth water crossing, even though it was almost under water.

For the last seven miles, our wildlife sightings were few and far between. We did meet two people on horseback that warned us of a rattlesnake ahead of us. You may be relieved to know that we didn't get a picture of the snake. We did catch a picture of this deer bouncing through the grass like his legs were made of springs.

We're at a loss for wildlife when we include a colorful bug that is casting a scary shadow.

As we closed the loop, we came back to the area we had hiked early this morning when the sun was just rising. We had gone up that ravine this morning, but this afternoon it is guarded by a big bull bison.

He is laying right on the trail, so it looks like no one will be doing that side of the loop for now.

After ten miles, the only thing between us and the car is crossing back over the Little Missouri River. This morning we had taken off our shoes and rolled up our pants. But this afternoon our shoes and pants are wet and muddy from the other creek crossings. We figured that this walk through the muddy river water will clean them off.

Whew! We are trying to get back into hiking shape for the Rocky Mountains in Canada. But this 9-mile hike that stretched into ten miles made us tired! We were content to lounge around the camp site for the rest of the day before we pack up for our next move down the road.