To many of the avid mountain bikers out there, 7 miles of trails may sound a little bit disconcerting. Especially if you’re used to the endless riding in Utah and Colorado (and many other places) where you can ride your bike for hundreds of miles and not see the same trail twice. Much like Pembina Gorge, we are so impressed and excited about what Turtle River State Park has to offer to cease our craving for excitement.
The North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department provides a map of the trails, which can be viewed here. The trails wind up and down and around meadows and creeks. There are steep hilly pitches and smooth grassy stretches. Some loops ease in and out of marshes while others are heavily wooded and vegetated. There is enough climbing involved to ensure a good workout and enough sharp turns and long downhill stretches to enable fast paced and exciting riding. Trails can be narrow because of creeks to cross, the tall trees rooted there for years, and the thick grass sitting well above your tire. The seven miles of trails do not get boring as it’s fun to loop and figure eight and switch it up every pass.
There are nice posts marking each trail by it’s name but we usually just go where we want and don’t pay attention to the names! It’s not hard to get lost but it’s easy to not realize where you are. Each trail leads to another and so eventually, if you happen to get turned around, you’ll wind up back at the car. Tyson and I got separated from each other once. As I was always told, stay where you are if you get lost, and eventually that little piece of advice reunited the two of us after about fifteen minutes. With that said, if you’re riding with a group make sure you either stick together or wait at forks because there are a lot of forks and turnoffs and it’s easy to get separated.
This is such a fun area and we personally feel as though we could get lost there for hours on end! A few little tickets of advice… Wear lots of bug spray, if you’re there in the summer, it is pretty populated with mosquitos (except for some reason Tyson only got bit once and I got bit six or seven times!). With that said, Tyson found a tick on him after a couple of hours so make sure to check for ticks. Once you turn off of Highway 2, you should park right there at the welcome sign. There is a big lot and if you park there you get a little bit more ride time (and you don’t have to pay to park).
Turtle River State Park is a very fun place to spend the day exploring, whether hiking or biking. There are what look like to be amazing camp spots that would surely be a great time. A nice big river runs through the park as well that people have been known to canoe. For us, Turtle River is a great place to race around on our bikes and get in shape for the biking we’ll be doing in the fall on the endless rides out west.
