Today was our day to do a little hiking. I was grateful to have the knee brace I had gotten from my orthopedic physician this summer. While my right knee still gives me pain, especially on stairs, I found I was able to hike a little as long as I used a walking stick for hills.
We chose a trail called Coal Vein Trail, which was about 0.8 mile round trip. While it offered some stairs and hills, the going was mostly flat. There are veins of coal in these hills which appear as black layers in the rocks. In 1951 a vein of coal caught fire (from a lightening strike, perhaps?) and burned for 26 years. Hikers would bring marshmallows to toast over the burning coal! Plants have regrown and it is now a very pretty area. We had the trail all to ourselves.
After Bob and I returned to our car, we drove on a little farther until we came to the head of another trail, called Boicourt Trail. This one was only 0.3 mile, and the park brochure assured us it was not only easy, but offered spectacular views. Let's go!
The brochure was right. The views were amazing.
If you look carefully in the above picture, you can see a faint trail on the hill in the center. That's where we walked to.
We felt like we were the only people in the park.
As we had on the other two days, we saw horses and bison again today as we drove the loop. It was a glorious finish for our trip to the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Tomorrow we head for Bismarck for a few days, North Dakota's capitol.
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