Wilderness Bikepacking The Maah Daah Hey Trail, North Dakota Badlands

TheAdventureBrothers first attempt at wilderness bikepacking the Maah Daah Trail in the North Dakota Badlands. This wilderness adventure film was self-shot by the adventurers, therefore is as real as it gets.

The Maah Daah Hey Trail along with the Cottonwood spur is a 160-mile multi-use single track trail that runs through the rugged wilderness of the North Dakota Badlands. There are campsites with potable water about every 20 to 25 miles along the trail, which makes the Maah Daah Hey a perfect trail for wilderness bikepacking. However, the trail is very rugged and physically demanding in many stretches.

To lighten the load, we cached food, consumable supplies and firewood at each campsite. Rain can turn the trail soil into slick mud that clogs up tires and makes riding along cliff edges dangerous. Days before we arrived, a deluge of rain turned the southern stretch of the trail and service roads into a muddy mess. Even placing some of our supply caches was challenging in our 4WD pickup. So, we headed to the most northern end of the trail to start at CCC campground and hoped that the forecast for more thunderstorms would not come true.