Currently I am 5 days into a 6 day drive from Bedford, MA to Bozeman, MT. I am moving to Bozeman in order to work and ski/ride at Big Sky Resort. More about my winter in a later post. Anyway, I am in the midst of gunning it across the country in a speedy hajj. My stops so far have been: State College, PA (8hr), Midland, MI (8hr), Chicago, IL (5hr), Fargo, ND (10hr), Medora, ND (5hr, current location). Tomorrow I will end in Bozeman, MT (7hr). I was visiting college friends at PSU, an old college friend in Midland, and cousins in Chicago. The drive has been super smooth sailing as well as lots of fun. Im listening to tons of music and podcasts. Here are a few pics from the Chicago stop: Today I woke up early and drove my 5 hours in order to arrive in Medora, ND around noon. Medora is the gateway town to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The population of Medora was 137 in 2017, and I accessed this town after 350 miles on I-94 west. I hope that helps to describe how remote the park is. TRNP is in the Badlands. It houses awe inspiring geologic formations as well as vast grass plains. The park is named after Theodore Roosevelt because he used to ranch there. Here are 3 Teddy quotes to paint a better picture: - "I have always said I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota." - "I grow very fond of this place, and it certainly has a desolate, grim beauty of its own, that has a curious fascination for me." - "The Bad Lands grade all the way from those that are almost rolling in character to those that are so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth." I really enjoyed my day, I went for a trail run through a petrified forest and explored the visitor center as well as the scenic drive loop. The weather was a GORGEOUS 50 degrees and sunny. Super lucky! As I am typing this at 6pm, I plan to head back out at 10pm for some stargazing on the scenic drive. But the reason I wrote this post is because I interviewed the Park Ranger at the visitor center and wanted to share what I learned. I wanted to interview the Ranger, Ms. Katherine Sedlacek, because I studied park management a fair amount in my Rec, Park, & Tourism major at PSU which has left me with a natural curiosity about park management especially when it's a national park. I mustered up my courage and asked, and I was so glad I did. Here is what I learned: First, for context, I learned that Ms. Sudlacek has been with the NPS for 9 years, 7 of which were at TRNP. The first two were at Glacier NP in Montana and Kenai Fjords NP in Alaska. She is now a permanent (not seasonal) ranger at TRNP. Her role was in interpretation, which totally made sense because she was a really knowledgeable and charismatic speaker. (The following is transcribed from a recorded in person interview) Q: How many other staff work here? A: "We have about 45 permanent between North and South (the two units of the park), right now we are lower staffed at 35 I think... A lot of people have retired or left and it's hard to fill in North Dakota. And also just funding. Summertime we'll hire on about 70 seasonal workers- between maintenance, law enforcement, interpretation, and resource management." Q: What are some common challenges you see with visitor management? A: "Here specifically one of the biggest things is our sediment is so soft... the carving (vandalism) is an issue. Also our petrified forest, we are the 3rd largest concentration, so people taking petrified wood are some of our top issues. Like Wind Canyon is kind of unfortunately a recurring issue with families coming back, and being like 'oh I carved here you should carve here' and then passing it generations down. There's a lot of social trails (in Wind Canyon), and you are allowed to go off trail here, so we aren't gonna close that off. People like to slide down those dunes. The other thing is we're kind of an underrepresented/ under known/ lesser known National Park, so one of the other things is people walking dogs. The general rule in all National Parks is we're not really pet friendly... Q: Do dogs eat prairie dogs? It is a hands off approach, it's almost like a museum approach to all of the resources. Because of that, if there's a case where maybe a dog does get a prairie dog or attracts an animal to a person (walking the dog was at owner discretion)." Q: Are there ever animal incidents? A: "Yes, we don't really have large predators, the largest would be... we've finally seen a mountain lion more recurring in the last year than I have in the past 5 years, so that's a recent thing. So potential for mountain lion but no bear or wolves. The biggest thing would be the bison, and we did have one incident this summer, during the rut which is their mating season. You always want to keep a distance. Like us they have their space bubbles and they're giant so it's a big bubble. (This summer) we had a hiker going through a whole herd and they did get hit in the legs. And I believe there's an article about it (CLICK HERE for that article!). That's why our decorations in front of admin are Theodore Roosevelt and bison safety, because that's kind of the theme this summer from Yellowstone to us. It's funny... The word for bison is also buffalo, and that's from the french trapper word les boeufs which is like cows. Because at first when witnessing bison there are so many they almost seem like cows, you know, herd style. But they are really quick they can go 0 to 35 quick. It's not a predator, obviously, it doesn't eat meat, but it does have that big safety bubble. Q: Can you help me understand what the Badlands are comprised of? A: "A lot of folks coming out don't know... There are the Badlands South Dakota, and that's the Badlands National Park. We are Badlands, but we're named Theodore Roosevelt. And there are Badlands up in Canada. The theme is that the Rocky Mountains are uplifting and they're sending sediment this way, so it's all sediment that has built up, packed down, and then been eroded in various ways. We eroded a lot sooner than these folks (SD Badlands NP), and so we are about 400,000 years old in terms of our erosion, they are 200,000 years old. They are a lot of sharper buttes and a lot more barren. We are more rounded with more vegetation. I like to say we're the friendlier and fuzzier Badlands, for hiking and running. -end of interview, thanks Ms. Sudlacek!- Note: I learned in the visitor center that the name Badlands comes from the Lakota word for the area, which translated to "bad land". A whole number of Native American tribes were mentioned in the visitor center's 25 minute video as having lived in the area or passed through. It made me wonder where that narrative was. It was lacking from the video and the visitor center museum. The cultural pride of this land according to the narrative I was presented is Theodore Roosevelt; for his time spent in this area and his enduring conservationist legacy from founding 230 million acres of protected public land while he was president (citation and more info click here). I really wish there had been information regarding the story of the Native Americans in this area and what happened to them, although I'm pretty sure I could guess how it went. I've noticed this 'rugged white individualist America conquers frontier' story at visitor centers before. Oh it's so romantic! After all, I'm currently in my religious pilgrimage out west, who am I to talk bad on the American dream? Well anyway it's worth pointing out this hole in the story. Lastly, I would like to appreciate Theodore Roosevelt for all he did in public lands conservation. John Muir took him out in what would later be Yosemite National Park and argued the case for protecting public lands such as Yosemite. That camping trip as well as Roosevelt's time in the Badlands are huge reasons for why he was so influential in setting up 25 of the 32 sites that would be handed to the NPS when it was founded in 1916. Well I learned a ton from my day in the Badlands. Tomorrow I drive into Bozeman and my winter season really begins. To close this out, here are a few pics from my day in the park:
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