Maah Daah Hey Mancation

Above is a photo of the group of us from Fargo that made our way out to the Maah Daah Hey trail system in Western ND. Rory Beil, Troy Ivesdal, Al Kraft, Bill Schalow and his son Matt, Tom Clow and his son Anders, Dennis Kraft (Al's Dad from Jamestown that was the support guy and overall wisest guy of the weekend) and Matt and me. Tom Clow coined the phrase "mancation" because there has been an annual trip with most of these guys the last four years. Always good to get away with a good group of people sharing the same interests. This fall since the trip was scheduled late in the season and relatively close to home, three of us brought our sons which proved to be great for all of us. All three are about the same age and had a fun time.
Waking up Friday AM - Medora Campground, temperature on my watch was 27 degrees which made for a nice frost on all of our stuff. Coldest that all of us had experienced yet this season. We had tents, but did not set them up all weekend - my kind of camping.

Western ND received anywhere from 7 to 11 inches of snow the week before which made us nervous as the trails are tough to handle when they are even remotely wet. The weather for the weekend was scheduled to be sunny with a SE wind so we opted to take the push from the wind and go south to north.

MDH trail Friday morning. Al and Troy handling a technical section. The northern exposures were wet and very technical causing most of the bikes to plug up. Of course once the bikes plug up then your shoes plug up and everything goes bad. We worked through it with some time spent using sticks to work the mud out, but overall the experience was positive as it is mountain biking. Every hour the trails improved with the sunny skies and south breeze drying things up nicely.Meeting with Al's Dad at lunch. Dennis Kraft is a guy that has hunted almost everything and traveled a lot of the area that we were riding going after deer and elk. He was a perfect guy to have as our shuttle driver. He donated a weekend of his time hauling all of our stuff around, meeting us on this road crossing so that we could eat and fill our water bottles - excellent! After the break on Friday afternoon, a couple of guys jumped in with Dennis to meet the riders at Camp Wannagan later in the day. Fridays ride totalled 25 miles, 19 miles was on the Buffalo Gap trail that skirts around the Theodore National Park due to the fact that bikers cannot ride in the park - as mentioned in my last post, George W. Bush is hopefully going to change that!
Matt riding a peaceful section of open prairie.

Rory and Al hanging out enjoying the day.This barren country is less than 5 hours west of Fargo. We did not see another biker or horse back rider all weekend. Matt Wenzel and I came upon a couple of mule deer one being a big buck and we saw the signs of a lot of wild life activity, but overall the sightings were few and far between.
Petrified tree that must have fallen over a million years ago. We went through a section of petrified tree stumps Saturday morning. All of what looks like a tree in the photo is actually rock which is very cool.Saturday morning, we were down to five riders. Bill and Matt Schalow, Tom and Anders Clow stayed back with Dennis. They went and retrieved Tom's vehicle and headed up to meet us at our second nights campground - Elk Horn.
We were not an hour out of camp and Rory hollered up to me that he had a technical problem...that he did. Rory snapped his derailleur hanger in two and was more or less done for the day. We turned his bike into a single speed, gave him a map and sent him down the gravel road. Rory was good natured and was hoping to get a piece of apple pie from one of the ranchers wives.
Al, Troy, Matt and I continued on at a good pace. We had 22 miles to ride to camp. At 12 miles in we stopped to have lunch and as we got back on the saddle, Troy had a flat tire. We attempt to change it and all he had was a schrader valve tube that would not fit his rim that was for presta only. Of course the patch kit was with Rory who was on a gravel rode miles away. Al had schraders too and Matt and I had 29" tubes that only pinch when you put them in a 26" tire. The leak was relatively slow so we put Troy's bad tube back on the rim and pumped it full of air. It was a slow leak and I was anticipating a stop every 15 - 20 minutes or so to re-pump which was our only option. Troy told Matt and I to take off and that he and Al would make their way to camp at their own pace.

Matt and I made good time of it finishing off the last 10 miles. The trail had dried up almost completely other then some shady northern sides of steep cliffs. Lots of long climbs and sweet decents over the most rugged country you can imagine. Spectacular! We arrived to the Elk Horn camp to fresh water and stories about what took place throughout the day. Luckily Rory was there. He'd ride a bit, hitch hiked a bit, checked a few oil rigs with a guy and overall had an interesting day making his way back to camp. I was expecting Troy and Al within the half hour.

After a quick break, Matt and I took a ride with the others to explore a possible river crossing for the drive out the next day. No such luck, as the snow that fell the week before had the rivers running fast and too deep to drive across.

We got back to camp an hour later and Troy and Al still were not there. I grabbed a tube, pump and patch kit and backtracked up the trail to find them. TC and Rory joined me to the top of a long climb and sure enough there they were. They had broken off the valve stem on the second air attempt and had walked almost 8 miles pushing their bikes - bummer. We changed the tube and salvaged Troy and Al's last mile of the ride on a technical downhill that was well worth doing a second time like I was able to do. Lesson learned for some of these guys to prepare prior to the ride. The correct tools and replacement parts and knowledge to repair out on the trail is crucial when you are miles from anywhere and on your own.

Packed the trailer with the bikes the night before. The weather all weekend could not have been better. As we rolled out of camp Sunday morning it started to sprinkle making it easier to go home. Overall the weekend was excellent. Matt Wenzel and I knocked off over half of the MDH, two days of non stop riding on one of the best trails in the country. The camaraderie with a good group of people could not have been better. Good food(thanks Kraft's), good stories, sleeping under the stars and of course riding your bike with friends and your son can not be beat!