Three Days in Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Medora, North Dakota

travel dates: July 2022

I talked about Theodore Roosevelt National Park awhile ago on the RV Atlas Podcast, if you’d care to listen. 

You can’t spend much time in Theodore Roosevelt National Park without hearing someone or other invoke the 26th president’s thoughts on North Dakota: “I have always said I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota.” Teddy Roosevelt first came to the North Dakota badlands to hunt bison, but returned later as a recently widowed young father to mourn, and stayed on as a cattle rancher before finally heading back east for a career in politics. But, of course, he retained his affection for the vastness and beauty that he encountered in North Dakota and went on to establish the Forest Service, sign the Antiquities Act, and protect hundreds of millions of acres of land.

So it’s fitting that he has a National Park in his beloved North Dakota named after him, and it’s fitting that the tiny town of Medora essentially turns into a Teddy Roosevelt theme park every summer.

But it’s ALSO really pretty!

If you’ve been to the Badlands in South Dakota, the landscape is pretty similar here…but there are enough differences between the two national parks that it’s definitely worthwhile to visit both if you get the chance. Getting the chance can be a bit complicated, of course, owing to Theodore Roosevelt’s location in the middle of nowhere. We fit in two nights here on our way home from Glacier National Park, and that worked out really well. I gather it’s how a lot of people, particularly RVers, do a visit, in fact. It’s not exactly close to Glacier: it’s nearly a 600 mile drive, and a pretty desolate one at that. But it’s also right on I-94 (you can see it from the park!) so a stop can make a lot of sense to break up the very long drive back east.

Aside from people making the park a stop on a long road trip, we got the impression that most people visiting were from the state/region. We were actually at two separate shows where they went through and asked where people were from, and North and South Dakota plus Minnesota were definitely the most represented. It’s just sort of tricky to get here from other parts of the country, and it’s a place you can cover pretty well in a long weekend, so not a lot of people devote a whole vacation, complete with a flight, to Theodore Roosevelt/Medora. And much as we enjoyed our time here, I’m not sure I’d really tell someone to try to do that. But that’s all the more reason to take long road trips!

I’m just going to go through chronologically and talk about what we did here. We were in Medora for three nights, and got there early enough on our first night to see the musical and get dinner. If you can do two full days here like we did, there’s definitely plenty to see. It would be tough to make it the north unit of the park without that second day. A third full day would not have been overkill; there are things in the town we’d have liked to see and didn’t have time to, and there are other things do inside the park if you have more time as well. But two and a half days will definitely give you time to see a lot of the park and sample the offerings in the town.

Most of the stuff in town is run by the Medora Foundation, so that you can go to one handy website and get all the info.

Medora Musical (and the Pitchfork Steak Fondue)

The Medora Musical is a sight to behold. Billed as “good old-fashioned family fun with thrilling variety acts, live horses on stage, a firework finale and new twists each summer. All while celebrating the history of Medora, Teddy Roosevelt, and the historic American West,” the surprisingly polished and professional musical manages to be all things to all people…or at least to all people with any interest whatsoever in musicals. I’ve watched YouTube videos in which grown men cry at the earnest patriotism on display, yet the show is also kitschy/self-deprecating enough to appeal to cynics like our family. And it can entertain everyone from toddlers to senior citizens.

The musical, which very loosely tells the story of Medora through a variety of musical acts, runs eight times a week in season at an impressive outdoor theater with views of the North Dakota badlands.

Ticket prices reflect the elaborate nature of the production, running around $60 for adults (plus a bunch of added on fees that are impossible to avoid, as far as we can tell, no matter when or where you buy the tickets). There are discounts available sometimes, including a couple of nights a week when kids (through 17) are free. We deliberately timed our visit for one of these nights, since we still had two official kids at the time, and it saved us quite a bit of money.

The Pitchfork Steak Fondue open air restaurant shares a parking lot with the musical, and is exactly what it sounds like: they take strip steaks, boil them in barrels of oil (on pitchforks!) and serve them to the masses along with assorted sides. There’s also live music and alcohol available to purchase (unlike at the musical). You can make an evening of it by pairing dinner here with the musical afterwards, and that’s exactly what we did. It was…fine. This is the only picture I have:

So, like the musical, this is a pretty pricey experience, coming in at $50 per adult once assorted ticket fees are added on (kids eat free, but they get hot dogs instead of steak). They bill it as steaks “cooked to medium-well perfection,” but those of us who know that there’s no such thing as medium-well perfection when it comes to steak (there’s not a bit of pink in these steaks once they make it to you) will feel a little sad about that part. And the sides are nothing to write home about, either. There are better and much less expensive meals to be found in Medora, so if we had it to do over again we’d skip the Pitchfork Fondue and just do the musical.

To sum up: Musical=essential component of any Medora visit, Pitchfork Fondue=unnecessary

A few more notes on the musical:

It’s very accessible. Most people will take this escalator down, but there’s a high capacity elevator available as well:

I think everyone in my family voted “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” our favorite part:

Medora got pretty lucky in having a relatively universally beloved president (I mean, this requires ignoring some stuff) to work with, particularly in These Troubled Times. But they also apparently really wanted a big military set piece, which required pretending that the Spanish-American War is 1. something most Americans actually know anything about and 2. one of America’s brighter moments. But the important thing is that it gives the horses a chance to show off!

Theodore Roosevelt National Park: South Unit

A tip: don’t think that because North Dakota is way up there next to Canada it doesn’t get hot in the summer. When we were there in mid-July the temperatures climbed well into the 90s and stayed there for several days. So, while there are a number of longer hikes in the South Unit of the national park, we were glad there are also plenty of very short ones that let you see some spectacular scenery and wildlife before escaping back into your air conditioned car.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is broken into three units: the South Unit, right off of I-94 and adjacent to the town of Medora, is by far the most visited. It includes a scenic drive and two visitors’ centers–one on the scenic drive and one that doubles as an I-94 rest area (we didn’t make it to that one). The North Unit is less visited thanks to its inconvenient placement 50 miles north of the interstate, via a desolate highway with nothing but the (very) occasional gas station and oil fields to break up the drive. The Elkhorn Ranch, site of Theodore Roosevelt’s actual home, manages to be even less accessible, positioned at the end of a dirt road, some of which requires four-wheel-drive to reach, depending on how recently there’s been rain. We did not make it here, either.

Once upon a time, the scenic drive in the South Unit was a 36 mile loop, but for the past several years the last few miles have been closed due to erosion, so these days you drive 22 miles in and then turn around and drive 22 miles back out. The park map lists the last few miles as a construction zone now, so there’s hope that someday visitors will again be able to complete the entire loop.

When you make the drive, you’ll have a map with all the good places to stop marked; there are any number of places that are marked as “trails” but are really only .1 or .2 miles long–more scenic views next to the road than actual trails. We stopped off first to take a look at the prairie dog colony right next to the park road. Then we saw the Skyline Vista, one of those .1 miles trails to a nice overlook…although it’s a nice overlook of both badlands and I-94 (see photo above). Next up we checked out the .2 mile Boicourt  Trail.

Now is as good a time as any to say that the wildlife viewing at TRNP is amazing. We saw animals in greater numbers and more frequently here than at Glacier by far. Prairie dogs, bison, wild horses, pronghorn, deer! Bring binoculars!

The longest trail we stopped at in the South Unit was the .4 mile Wind Canyon Trail, a popular loop trail with great views of the Little Missouri River.

After we finished our drive, we stopped by the visitor center near the entrance to the park. Here you can watch a film about Theodore Roosevelt’s time in North Dakota (and hear the quote!), check out a small exhibit area, peruse the small but well-curated gift shop, and tour Theodore Roosevelt’s Maltese Cross Cabin. We attended a ranger talk about the cabin and, again, about Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences in North Dakota.

That evening we ate dinner at the Little Missouri Saloon, which had decent food and a nice deck overlooking town (we were trying to stick with outdoor dining this summer, so we sat outside even though it was a gazillion degrees).

Theodore Roosevelt National Park: North Unit

Remember my warning about how, even though it’s really far north, North Dakota can get super hot in summer? Well, let me also warn you that North Dakota, being so far north and all, can get really cold in summer.

Twenty four hours made a huge difference. It was much, much cooler, drizzly/rainy, and windy. Steady winds of 30 miles per hour all day, with gusts up to 50. Truth be told, I was a little reluctant to make the 50 mile drive to the North Unit in that weather; the wind in particular worried me on those flat, straight roads with nothing to break up the gusts except our big old van. But pretty much everyone we met insisted that it was worth it.

And….yes! It was! (Although I wouldn’t have tried to take the trailer on that same route in that wind). The North Unit is less crowded and more rugged than the South Unit. You still have lots and lots of buttes, but in the south you’re mostly looking out on them from above, whereas up north you can get up close and personal from down below and see some fun features that are absent in the south unit.

We stopped first at the small visitors’ center, but there’s really not a lot here. There happened to be a ranger talk going on about all the things that can kill you in the park, so we listened to that and then headed back out.

The North Unit is another scenic drive, this one 14 miles out and back (so 28 round trip). The beginning of the road winds through the bottom of the badlands, with plenty of chances to get out and look…and climb (in that way, the North Unit reminded us more of the South Dakota Badlands). A stop early on is a great place to look at the unusual “cannonball concretions” up close:

The park’s website gives this explanation for how they form:

When mineral rich water seeps down through the porous layers that make up the badlands, it can deposit those minerals in spaces or gaps in the sediments. The minerals act as a kind of glue, holding these sediments together, often forming around a core. As more and more layers are deposited, the concretion builds outward like a pearl, before being exposed by erosion.

The longest trail we did at Theodore Roosevelt was the Caprock Coulee Nature Trail. This one’s only 1.6 miles round trip (you can go further and get to a view…but it’s the same view that you’ll reach later on on the park road), but it was a bit rougher and less tamed than we expected. Also filled with very fresh looking bison droppings, which was a little unnerving since the trail was narrow in places and it would have been tricky to get out of the way had we met up with a bison. You can pick up a guide at the beginning that will tell you all about the geologic features along the way.

Gradually the road takes you higher, and you get to some seriously impressive overlooks. And seriously windy when we visited.

Here’s the Little Missouri again, and a CCC shelter overlooking it:

The North Unit was just as good for wildlife viewing as the South Unit:

The end of the road features one last impressive overlook:

Once we finished the drive, it was time to hurry back to Medora because we wanted to catch a performance at the Town Hall Theater by Theodore Roosevelt reprisor (their word. I don’t know why they don’t go with impersonator. My autocorrect wants me to type “repressor”) Joe Wiegand. Unfortunately, the modestly priced show we saw doesn’t seem to exist anymore; it appears it’s been replaced with “Brunch with President Roosevelt,” wherein you can pay $50 for bacon and eggs and ALSO see the show we saw for something more like $15.

Anyway, I can vouch for Joe Wiegand being an impressive guy who knows a lot about Theodore Roosevelt. The show started with him going around the audience and finding out where people were from and then telling a story about that state as if he were Teddy Roosevelt recounting a fond memory. Our town happens to be where Theodore Roosevelt’s mother grew up and was married, so that was an easy one.

After the audience participation part, there was a lengthy section where President Roosevelt told several long rambling stories about hunting bison and such, and I was very nervous that then 9 year old Abe was going to lose patience, but he hung in there.

That evening we tried to walk in to town to get ice cream. Important tip: there is no where to get ice cream after 8 PM in Medora! Not even in the height of the tourist season. Plan accordingly. But it was nice to walk around the (very empty) town anyway:

Thus ended our stop in Medora, North Dakota. I’ll be back with a quick review of our campground, and then we’ll keep heading east! Actually mostly south for awhile. Also, I’ll probably blog about Newfoundland more next. Or non-giant summer trip stuff, even! so much to blog, so little time.

maybe you would like to pin this?