Hell Creek in a handbasket

Eastern Montana is not for the faint of heart

Someone has said that disasters for humans out in nature are usually caused by predictable factors: an impulse decision, the sunk cost principle, and bodily needs (hunger, thirst, or fatigue.)

We left the smoky disappointment of Glacier National Park and drove all day across monotonous east Montana backcountry, an area so sparsely populated there was scarcely a truck stop to be found. We paused in one of these rough towns long enough to wash the rig, a necessity after the conditions we’d encountered in Glacier. Scraping and scrubbing off layers of grit glued on with bug juice was an hour-long, laborious and expensive chore. We grabbed a corn dog apiece from a dispenser at a gas station and got on our way, eventually arriving at a forsaken hamlet at the turnoff for Hell Creek State Park.

This inauspiciously named spot was chosen by Mike via the internet for its position halfway between Glacier and Theodore Roosevelt National Park, our next destination. The park supposedly had water access—a treat in that dry area.

At the brink of the turnoff, Mike braked to contemplate a large sign: CAUTION: Ungraded Road, 25 Miles. Four Wheel Drive Required. 

Paused in the idling SUV, we contemplated the disturbing sign. Nothing online had indicated it was only accessible via an ungraded road. We stared past it, down the barren and bumpy line transecting dusty knolls with nary a tree or bush in sight.

“We just washed the rig,” Mike said. “Twenty-five miles is a long way on a dirt road.”

I gazed around us. The hamlet we’d stopped at the edge of was one of those places occupied by people with far greater stubbornness and fortitude than we possessed. The day’s heat shimmered over the few, rusty tin roofs. 

The buildings were sagging and dilapidated, hunkered down in the shade of a few spindly and wind-whipped tree skeletons. Everything, everywhere, was the uniform dun color of blown dust.

If we didn’t go to this Hell Creek campground, we would have to pick another destination in this forbidding area to try to reach before dark, and we were operating on one corn dog apiece. I just wanted to be done with travel for the day.

“We’re losing daylight. Rough roads are what we have four-wheel-drive for,” I said. “I don’t want to have to keep driving in the dark looking for a place to camp.”

The Hell Creek destination wasn’t intended to be anything but a stopover; still, it was supposedly on a lake near a nature preserve. On the map it seemed nice, and the photos of families frolicking in boats promised a place to swim.

“We have four wheel drive,” I repeated.

Mike put the truck in gear and we started forward.