This week’s column is unusual. Give very quick advice. The destination is Bullion Butte in the Little Missouri Badlands in the southwest corner of North Dakota. The instance is a party.
Conservationists scored a victory in the multi-year effort to keep parts of the Badlands without roads and as potential applicants for designation as wilderness areas. A federal appeals court ruled in opposition to the state and several southwestern counties. The plaintiffs argued that the U. S. Forest Service spacesThe U. S. Department of Homeland Security had designated as roadless to be open to the road structure because the state owns the rights of way to the segment line. Not so fast, according to the court. They belong to the federal government.
However, the resolution was more procedural. The complainants had not submitted their files on time. In fact, they were more than a decade behind. This can also result in an appeal, the U. S. Supreme Court. The U. S. government would possibly be involved in other matters. Still, Bullion Butte and a few others Roadless spaces in the Badlands need protection, and the Badlands Conservation Association organized a hike to the most sensitive part of Bullion Butte to draw attention to the mound and other roadless spaces and get more advocates for its protection.
The hike will be led by Lillian Crook, who grew up near the mound and has been advocating for her coverage for all the years I’ve known her. Clay Jenkinson, North Dakota’s best-known public intellectual, humanities scholar and student of Theodore Roosevelt, will also be involved.
It is not a business for shy or breathless. In an announcement for the hike, Elizabeth Loos, executive director of BCA, notes, “This is an arduous full-day hike. . . Participants will have to bring their own food, snacks, water, camping and hiking equipment, first aid material and anything else that makes this outing fun for their point of participation. Walking shoes are a must.
Participants will have to meet at Chimney Park in Medora. If there is drinking water there “but not after you’ve gone south” to the hill, Loos says. The appointment is set for nine in the morning on Sunday, May 29.
Loos’ note continues: “Please don’t leave Chimney Park on Sunday morning without the leaders of the organization. One can “get lost” on the gravel roads leading to Bullion Butte and mistakenly get away from the roads and public lands. Group leaders may not have mobile phone signals at other times of the weekend. There will be a variety of other people of all ages and endurance levels. By participating in this excursion, Americans take the risk.
“But it will be fun,” Loos concludes.
Bullion Butte is not the highest point in North Dakota, but it is the largest. In his statement, Loos dubbed him “The Mother of All Mounds. “
My knowledge of Bullion Butte began in 1971, when he was a journalist at Dickinson Press. My first “promotion” was with Ike Ellison, who was district manager for the Little Missouri National Grasslands, which are administered through the U. S. Forest Service. On our many trips to Badlands, Ellison pointed to Forest Service symptoms indicating that those were “multi-use lands,” and obviously believed recreation and isolation were part of the uses. Much of my understanding of public lands to my friend Ike, who passed away earlier this year after a half-century career in public lands management.
Once, I started the summit on my own. I designed a “vision quest” and went to the mound to feast on it. I think I could earn a call, as indigenous peoples do in such searches. And I did. The wind was blowing in my face as I climbed the hill and through my tent when I climbed it. My call, I decided, would be “Michael Howling Wind. ” It was also the hike where I saw my first rattlesnake and also my first ill will and my first green-purple swallow. Bullion Butte is one of the only places in the state where you can meet those birds.
There is no record of how many other people climbed Bullion Butte, but Theodore Roosevelt must have been one of them. His first ranch in the Badlands was only a few miles north of the hill. My friend Jim Fuglie, once the state’s director of tourism, insists that Roosevelt killed his first buffalo “in the shadow of Bullion Butte,” but some other people think otherwise. The homicide may have occurred only in the inner territory of Montana. This is a trivial objection. Bullion Butte dominates the landscape of this region. It can be seen from I-94 as the road passes through the Badlands.
Over the years, I’ve been to the most sensible Bullion Butte thing maybe a dozen or more times, of which are rewarding and memorable.
Unfortunately, I will not be participating in this year’s walk.
BCA requests RSVP at Box 2337, Bismarck, N. D. , 52502-2337 or 701-226-4266.
Full disclosure: Suezette and I are from the Badlands Conservation Alliance.
It’s still wrong: Fufeng Group is negotiating with personal land owners for its corn milling plant. The city of Grand Forks does not own the property.
Mike Jacobs is a former editor and editor of the Grand Forks Herald.