Our second day in Theodore Roosevelt National Park was spent in the North Unit, located about an hour’s drive straight north on Highway 85.
For reasons unknown, the North Unit is on Central Time but the South Unit is on Mountain Time. In one sense time is irrelevant when the parks are open 24 hours a day and you’re retired or on vacation. Just don’t be surprised when you see much later sunrise and sunset times than you might otherwise expect if coming from Mountain Time. On the day we went to the North Unit, sunset was well after 9:30 PM.
Staying near the imaginary line dividing time zones caused one recurring, quirky situation. Our cell phones randomly jumped back and forth between Mountain Time and Central Time without warning. I assume our phones were pinging between different cell towers in both time zones. A simple watch definitely comes in handy. We constantly double checked the time.
Anyway, back to the park. The North Unit has one scenic drive, out and back, 28 miles roundtrip. The road loosely follows the Little Missouri River. Unlike the South Unit, prairie dog towns don’t line the road. In fact, we did not see any prairie dogs in the North Unit. They’re there, but you have to hike to them.
After stopping for the obligatory entrance sign photograph, we made our way to the trailhead for the Caprock Coulee Trail. This turned out to be my favorite hike not just in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, but on the entire trip.
The Caprock Coulee Trail is a 4.3 mile loop. We hiked it counterclockwise starting on the nature trail section. The first 1.3 miles or so is okay, nothing special. The beauty of this trail is revealed after you hike up to the ridge line. The next 2.5 miles or so has fantastic views, passes by the Riverbend Overlook, and is an easy walk. The final 0.5 mile is a fairly steep downhill back to the parking lot.
If you want an easy walk with great views, but not the elevation changes, park at the Riverbend Overlook. The parking lot for the overlook is near the mid-point of a somewhat flat section of trail. From the parking lot follow the Caprock Coulee Trail east. As long as you can see the Little Missouri River, it is an easy hike. Turn around and return to the parking lot when you lose sight of the river. Next, go west from the parking lot following the trail along the ridge line. Turn around and return to the parking lot when the trail turns left and drops down into the woods.
The Riverbend Overlook itself is pretty nice, but the Oxbow Overlook at the end of the scenic drive has a better view of the Little Missouri River. This was our destination after completing the Caprock Coulee Trail.
While Oxbow Overlook has a great view, it is not the best view. About 1.2 miles from Oxbow Overlook is Sperati Point, which has the best views of the Little Missouri River. Just follow the Achenbach Trail across rolling hills until you come across large dirt patches in the grass with obvious great views. The view here rivals the view from the Wind Canyon Trail in the South Unit for best in the entire park.
On the way back from Sperati Point we confirmed first-hand that bison do walk on the trails. There are bison prints on all the hiking trails, so you know it happens. Rounding a hill, I saw a bison on the trail about 40 yards straight ahead. We saw each other at same time and both stopped.
Unlike a deer, a bison isn’t going to turn and run. We got the message to move, so up the hill we went. The bison watched us walk away and, thankfully, did not follow. We got out of his sight line and waited a few minutes before making our way back down the other side of the hill to the trail, a short distance behind where the bison first stopped. Luckily the bison had moved on by then.
I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous we’d walk over the hilltop and run smack into the bison. Instead we scared a couple of resting deer. They ran away pretty damn fast.
Later we asked a ranger about bison encounters and were told that, as a general rule, if a bison sees you and ignores you, all is good. Bison are usually pretty tolerant. But if a bison stares at you, it is best to move away.
During the day we saw few animals in the North Unit, just one bald eagle and a few random birds. But at dusk we saw over a dozen bison, some deer, a pheasant, and several wild turkeys. Another reminder that wildlife is best seen at dawn and dusk.
We stayed in the park until sunset, which sounds like a late night, but was really only about 8:30 PM Mountain Time. Unfortunately sunset was nothing special and a full moon prevented us from seeing a great night sky.
The next day, back in the South Unit, we went to the Painted Canyon section of the park, a small self-contained unit that doubles as a rest area on Interstate 94. We chose to hike the Painted Canyon Trail, a 4.2 mile out and back through the Painted Canyon.
The first half mile is along the rim of the canyon walking due east from the parking lot. Along the way you can look down and see numerous trails in the canyon, many of which appear to be game trails.
Not only that, but there are other trails leading into canyon, including one adjacent to a R/W marker (right-of way). It looked like a well-traveled trail so we took it. Perhaps 15 minutes later we realized we were not on the correct trail. We could see another well-defined trail about 100 yards farther east.
Based on the prints in the dirt and the numerous hair balls, I’m pretty sure the trail we followed was a main route for bison moving in and out of the canyon. We saw several other hikers make the same mistake, so we did not feel like idiots.
The actual Painted Canyon Trail has little shade, a lot of loose dirt, and several fairly steep sections. It’s doable without hiking poles, but we were glad to have them. On this hike we both got bit by quite a few insects, but did not realize it until later. The worst part was having bug spray but not using it.
Our half hour detour on the wrong trail resulted in us not quite getting to the end of the Painted Canyon Trail. I’d estimate that we went just under two miles out on the correct trail out before turning around. Because of the heat we chose to limit our hike by time rather than distance. Excluding the detour, it took us three hours to hike about four miles, which is pretty lousy for time. In our defense it was really hot and we went slow and steady on the steep sections.
This hike has great views for most of the trail. We did not, however, see any bison, wild horses, prairie dogs, bears, or any other wild animal that might possibly scare Stephanie. As it turned out, this was her favorite hike in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Hiking in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (Part II):
Caprock Coulee Trail: 4.3 miles
Sperati Point Trail: 2.4 miles
Painted Canyon Trail: 4.0 miles
Total Miles Hiked: a really great 10.7 miles
Garrett and Stephanie
If you have not already done so, read our other post about Theodore Roosevelt National Park:
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota (June, 2025, Part I).
To read other posts about our adventures in the National Parks and National Monuments, or elsewhere in the world, check out our Travel Blog. It contains collected links to all of our travel posts.
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