Juniper Campground, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Unit, near Watford City, ND

North Dakota has one national park, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in the western part of the state. There are two units of the park, the South Unit by Medora, and the North Unit about 35 miles north. It’s 15 miles south of Watford City. We’ve camped in the South Unit at Cottonwood Campground many times when we had lived in Dickinson, but never in the North Unit. On our way up to camp hosting at Lewis & Clark State Park near Williston, we decided to give it a try at Juniper Campground in the North Unit. The North Dakota Badlands are beautiful!

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The campground is 5 miles from the park entrance and is on a first-come first-served basis. Only the group site is reservable. There are 50 sites, pull-through and back-in. The fee is $14 per night in the summer, $7 in the winter. With the National Park Senior Pass it is half price. There are flush toilets and pit toilets, drinking water. No hookups. There is a dump station. The sites have a picnic table and grill. We were in a pull-through site #36. No TV reception. No Verizon cell service in the campground; we had to drive toward the end of the scenic road for 2 bar LTE.

Cottonwood Campground–weeks 4 & 5

It took until our last weekend there for it to finally slow down that the campground wasn’t full any more. We had 2 inches of rain the weekend of the Astronomy Festival, and more throughout the week. We had a few days of high temps in the 50’s with rain, and there were some no-shows and people that left early.

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The trees have been really changing colors; we can practically see the difference from one day to the next. By the time we left, some were past their peak and had lost their leaves already.

         
           
  


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