The Second Long NCT Hike - 1995

Everyone seemed to like last night's ancient history post. Since today's news is more snow, I'll just share another early NCT hike.

In 1995, we added my grad school housemate, Mathilda, to our hiking troupe, and decided to check out the western end of the North Country Trail. Prior to that time I'd only driven through North Dakota in the winter, and we had no idea what to expect. Except for the heat, we were delighted!

I'll start at the end. We finished at the western terminus in Lake Sakakawea State Park. There was no lovely sign there at that time, just a small post in the ground.

We were astonished at all the water. I had not previously realized that this was the prairie pothole region and there was lots of water and lots of waterfowl. I've always loved this picture. It just says North Dakota to me. Potholes and headwaters of the Sheyenne River behind us.

We started at the eastern edge of the Lonetree Wildlife Management Area near Harvey, ND, and hiked west. The "Mighty Og" was a privately constructed bit of roadside art that we found hilarious. It's gone now.

I'd love to show you lots of pictures from that hike, but I'll try to limit myself. Almost all the wildflowers were new to me. This is purple prairie clover.

The white pelicans were amazing. They remain one of my favorite birds, although they are so shy I have yet to get a truly decent picture of one.

My scariest night outside, ever, was on that trip as we survived an impressive thunderstorm while completely exposed on a bluff. And we'll never again find ticks problematic. We were covered with them all the time. We had to wipe quantities of them off each other at every stop.

The biggest problem was the relentless heat. It was over 100° many days in a row. If we couldn't find any shade (if we could, it was usually a single tree), we took to setting up our tarp at lunch and taking a snooze. We were super-thankful for the irrigation canal. We continaully wet our shirts and hiked until they dried- under a half hour, and then we did it again. In the evening we swam. It was always there so we had water to filter.

This was the first trip of many where my feet turned to hamburger. It was pretty awful. Mostly I just learned to walk anyway. It took 19 years, and many iterations of attempts to solve this problem, before we figured out that I needed to ditch the boots and use trail runners. The boots kept my feet too hot.

And at the end of these 134 challenging miles, I realized... I wanted to hike the entire NCT.

I had delusions that Chips would be able to do it all with me. Of course, dogs don't live long enough at the rate we were hiking. And his life would be shortened even more. But, to my knowledge, he still hold the record for the canine with the most unique miles on the NCT at about 1200.

Following this hike, I attended my first ever NCTA Conference to see if I wanted to get involved with this organization. Well... I think you know how that turned out.

I edited, did errands, washed dishes, blah blah.

See Allegheny NF- 1994

Western Terminus

Last day of the Hike Fest. We are all worn out, but it's sad anyway. This is a beautiful laser-cut metal sign support on the Audubon National Wildlife Refuge. This was a gift to the trail by Kathy Beal who has worked at Audubon her whole career and is a great advocate for the NCT. She recently retired.

The trail through Audubon used to be restricted to the road, but before I did my big hike, they decided we could have our own mowed trail.

There is a beautiful visitor's center with nice displays and interpretation of the wildlife. Lake Audubon is an arm of Lake Sakakawea, but it is hydrologically separate because the water level in Audubon is kept the same all year.

The afternoon hikes were staged to end at the western terminus of the entire trail. The one I chose began at the arch which welcomes hikers to Lake Sakakawea State Park (the westernmost land manager for the trail). There is a bell you can ring to celebrate beginning or ending.

And... here are the three muskateers at the actual terminus. My third time here. Marie's second, and Diane's first. The weather was dull when I was here in 2022, so I'm glad to have a picture in nice light.

This was followed by a nice dinner with pulled pork and corn on the cob served by the ladies of Riverdale (the local community). After that was a good presentation on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

The speaker clarified that the reason there are so many pronunciations of Sacajawea's name is because each tribal language had it's own nuances. In the Lewis and Clark journals it's usually Sacajawea or Sacagawea, but in North Dakota, one says Sakakawea!

Always hard to say goodbye to such good friends who care about this trail. We have noted that quite few of the people who have been involved for years are aging out. I think we have some younger folks stepping up to fill in. But, you know, I've been a member since 1995. In that amount of time there is bound to be a serious attrition rate. There were about 90 people who participated, which seems pretty good for an event that wasn't an actual national conference, and was at one of the termini. Those always have lower attendance because of the travel burden. The North Dakota chapters did a tremendous job of putting this together. Major Kudos!

Hiked 4 miles on the NCT in Audubon Wildlife Refuge and Lake Sakakawea State Park.

Miles hiked in 2025: 349.6
Miles hiked on NCT in 2025: 220.6

See Travel Day

Travel Day

The main project for everyone on Friday was to travel from the east side of the state to Lake Sakakawea in time for an evening hike.

There were clues to gather for the Scavenger Hunt, and we also had an agenda of our own. Of course I wanted to show Diane everything, but that wasn't going to work. She did want to see the two big railroad bridges across the Sheyenne. This is the Hi-Line Bridge in Valley City. It's double track up there!.

Then we went farther up the Sheyenne where it has been dammed to form Lake Ashtabula to see the Karnak Bridge. This one is single track. This bridge was there before they created the lake, because of course the valley was there and had to be spanned whether there was water in it or not. I loved seeing this bridge from a different perspective. The trail goes beneath both of these.

By then it was lunchtime. We stopped at a little cafe and had really good wraps or burgers. Acress the street was an unusually well-planned and attractive little park filled with flowers. The butterflies love the Joe-Pye Weed. Note both a Tiger Swallowtail and a Monarch.

This picture doesn't look like much, but it was the big "wow moment" of the day to me. This is a shot of the McClusky Canal from up above. The trail follows the canal for miles. While you are down there on the service road, the canal is your whole world. You just keep hiking with only the next bridge as your next goal. See McClusky Canal

From above, and this is a very busy place, it's just a thin wet line through the landscape. Here the canal is in a culvert under the state highway and the curved line is the service road that switchbacks up to cross the highway. The canal looks incredibly insignificant. I find this amazing, because it's such a huge part of the NCT North Dakota experience.

We arrived at Lake Sakakawea. This is the third-largest man-made lake in the US. It is created by damming the Missouri River.

We set up camp, wolfed down a fast dinner and arrived just in time for the ribbon cutting for a brand new segment of trail.

This is so new, I hadn't seen it. It's a three-mile secgment around the city of Riverdale, instead of following a street. It's closer to the lake with several views which is quite nice. Hikers in the hazy evening with the lake behind them.

This was followed by a campfire and s'mores which we took a pass on. It had been a long day.

Miles hiked- 3 North Country Trail around Riverdale ND.

See Sheyenne River State Forest

Sheyenne River State Forest

The hikes today were the most out of the ordinary for North Dakota. ND has five state forests (not very many), and the NCT goes through one of them. It is an atypical area of hills and trees. There are actually vistas.

Since I was last there in 2022, the NCTA has helped build a large parking area with a kiosk and latrine. The previous parking was only large enough for a few cars. The forester was telling us a bit about the area.

For over 200 miles, the trail is never far from the Sheyenne River. This was no exception. I did learn that the Shyenne is a perched river, meaning that the geology of the banks are higher than the surrounding ground, as natural levees formed when the river was created by the emptying of glacial Lake Souris.

The Sheyenne River State Forest is also home to North Dakota's only waterfall. It's not much to look at, but it's a huge destination just because it's the only one. One really unusual thing about this week is that ND is having a really bad mosquito week. We are about being carried away!

In the evening we had a great dinner.

Followed by some awards. Here Jerry receives the national Trail Builder of the Year Award from Deb. Jerry hosted me when we were here on my big hike.

These people are my tribe. We love recognizing those who do great service to the organization and the trail.

Hiked 5.4 miles on NCT in Sheyenne River State Forest

Miles hiked in 2025: 345.6
Miles hiked on NCT in 2025: 216.6

See North Dakota Eastern Edition

North Dakota, Here We Are

First stop this morning was to see a house in Minnesota that was built by Diane's grandmother's half brother. It's now on the National Register of Historic Places!

Believe it or not, I think we made more stops than we did yesterday, although many of them were short.

Minnesota is in love with large animal statues. Along the NCT you can find the world's largest loon, prairie chicken, and turkey. I have pictures of those. Now I've added an otter to the collection. But this one is metal.

It's holding down a fish with one paw.

Next stop was to do a short hike at Maplewood State Park so Diane could get some Minnesota NCT miles.

Then we needed lunch, which was topped off with pie. Pie is picture worthy.

Then we stopped in Pelican Rapids to see, well, the world's largest pelican!

Then it was off for the North Dakota border and Fort Abercrombie. They have recreated the blockhouses of the fort.

We made a couple of short stops to collect scavenger hunt game answers that is part of the Hike Fest. Then it was on to Dead Colt Creek Campground. There are several other people here who are attending Hike Fest.

This day is DONE! Tomorrow starts early enough with a hike, and I think we maxed out this day. We are beat, but happy. View from our campsite.

Hiked 1 mile of NCT in Maplewood State Park, Minnesota.

Miles hiked in 2025: 330.2
Miles hiked on NCT in 2025: 191.2

See People and Places

Best Photos of July 2022

 Here are the best of the pictures I think I took from July 2022. This was from the big hike. I know that was forever ago, but I've always wanted to try to share the best from each month. I have a lot of bad ones from this month.

I am saying these pictures are "best," not because they necessarily tell the story best, but because I think they are simply the best actual photographs. I've left them full size, so you can click on them and see them larger. That always makes photos look better. Three are cropped a bit, and one had the color saturation increased a tad.

I got a lot of wildlife and flower pictures, but most are only of the quality you can use to ID things, not really nice pictures.

They are chronological from west to east.

This is the Lonetree Wildlife Management Area seen from the eastern end of the McClusky Canal. If that irrigation project had been finished this would all have been flooded. Now, it's a beautiful recreation area. (Some officials realized the irrigation project was headed for environmental disaster).

Next up is showy milkweed. I like that I got several stages of buds and blossoms

I can't really identify this golden dragonfly. I've seen lots of them in North Dakota over the years. I guessed another golden one as an immature saffron-winged meadowhawk, but the wings are different on this one.

Here we have a Western Grebe. Look closely. She has a baby on her back!

This is a worked field with something just coming up. I like the pattern.

There are two amazing railroad bridges across Lake Ashtabula which is a dammed area of the Sheyenne River. This is the Karnak Bridge.

I am forever trying to get good pictures of the White Pelicans. They are amazing birds, but very shy. I think this is my best success to date.

A hazy morning in the Sheyenne Valley.

And a brighter afternoon in the Sheyenne River Valley.

Finally, the Sheyenne flows through Fort Ransom State Park and gathers itself into a setting that looks almost eastern. But this was a very appealing scene to me.

And how did today go? Pretty well. I did some computer work, laundry, changed my bed and showered. I'm going to have to be careful to not do too much computer time. Hurts the eyes. I also walked around the house (just inside) for 15 minutes, but that's the most I've done for 10 days. Very encouraging.

See Best Photos from June 2022