Adventure In The Badlands

On Memorial Day, May 28, 2018, Beverly Salmen and one of her friends embarked on a marvelous North Dakota adventure. They packed up some food, water, sunblock and a first aid kit, then took an 8-day trek down the Maah Daah Hey trail in Billings County, North Dakota.

The Maah Daah Hey trail is 150 miles of badlands, vistas, and grasslands that stretch across private land, Little Missouri National Grasslands and a little of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. It is an exciting place to hike, bike or ride horses and is the host, during the summer, to several bike races and endurance runs. The Badlands Trail Run on July 28, 2018 is the next highly anticipated event.

Neither Bev nor her friend is from North Dakota. Beverly comes from Minnesota while her friend is from Michigan. She and her friend's husbands had worked together for the same employer and they both attend the same church. It was inevitable they discover their shared love of hiking. Beverly and her friend both had hiked often in their previous states but had not yet truly seen what North Dakota had to offer. Now was the time. In the evening of Memorial Day, they drove out to the CCC trailhead and started walking. They only went 5 miles that first night and their husbands met them at a campground with tents, sleeping bags, food and other gear they would need in the mornings and evenings but not while out on the trail, then left the women trekkers to their travels in the morning. Every night for the next week those men repeated this service for the hardy pair until Bev and her friend had finished the trail. They averaged 15 miles of travel a day, occasionally going further. Other than rain the first night and a run in with a mother cow, Bev and her friend were left in peace to enjoy the beauty of this natural wonder. The friends are in their fifties. I asked Beverly if she would do the hike again. She said, "In a heartbeat! The scenery is incredible." and "It's North Dakota's best-kept secret in my opinion."

Beverly Salmen owns Home Comforts in Williston but her and her friend's passion is the great outdoors. More information about the Maah Daah Hey trail, events and registration can be found at http://www.medora.com or http://www.mdhta.com.