I'm planning a Havre, MT to Duluth, MN trip starting in mid-Sept. All but the last 125 mi. will be following ACA's N.T. Anyone that has done it recently (or even not so recently but mostly since the reroute around Williston) and has any information to share, I'd be grateful.

I am a hammock camper 95% of the time but I'm working out the best method to convert my hammock tarp to a shelter using my bicycle as the main means of support. I expect there aren't that many good hammocking spots along the N.T. in MT and ND but if someone knows otherwise let me know that. I also don't think I need to worry too much about mosquitoes in those areas but that too would be useful info. I have netting but it's more problematic to use when sleeping on the ground and not in the hammock.

Can I expect prevailing winds from the west/southwest? If you've done this route eastbound, what percentage of the time were you fighting headwinds? I'm not familiar with the early fall weather in either MT or ND (the closest I've come is eastern Wyoming in July/August) but wouldn't be surprised by afternoon thunderstorms though I'm guessing the frequency of afternoon storms on the plains decreases in Sept. Is that a correct assumption?

We stayed in Havre while riding the NT. The skeeters were awful. Nearby Chinook was allegedly the skeeter capital of the state. But that was in June. They may be gone by September.

Are you hoping to "wild camp?" If so, be advised that a lot of what you will encounter is open, often fenced off, ranch and farm land. Go to Google maps and use street view at various points along the route to see what I mean. Harlem was a nice town where we camped in the city park.

I cycled that route in 2012, the first year the reroute was in place. It was a typically good ACA route. The TR National Park is an unspoiled highlight. The bike shop in Medora is a great place.

Ditto the above, it's largely treeless range land. My eastbound ride was helped tremendously by tailwinds in June.

The mosquito is the Minnesota state bird. I've been there in September, way back when I was alive, but can't remember the bug conditions.

BTW...You also need to be wary of ants when sleeping on the ground. A few years ago I was touring in MT and stopped to shed some clothing. I sat my butt down on the opening of an ant colony. Pulled my bib straps up and put my jersey back on. That's when I felt the stings begin.


I also should have added that whatever you do, don't plant to stay at the "campground" in the center of Havre. It's a combination c-store, gas station and casino. The place was infested with skeeters in June. As an added touch, it's right next to a BNSF rail yard. We got rooms at the Duck Inn instead.


Winds varied in MT. Between Harlem and Malta we had a massive tailwind. I hit a sustained speed of 32.5 mph before I eventually went into the red and had to dial it back to 28 mph. Some days we had headwinds heading east. My advice would be to start early.

"Wild" or stealth camping has been my go-to method, when available. Town parks, cemeteries, ball fields, etc., when there doesn't seem to be outright antagonism from the locals, is what I'll probably shoot for on this trip. If you have any warnings I'd be grateful.

Thanks for all the info, so far.

You can try fire stations and churches where available. I used those more than I stealth camped on my tour this year. My only warning would be to make sure there's no sprinklers where you stealth camp at. That was a long night.

Just returned from the trip. Used only ACA's Sect. 3 (middle) and 5 (very end) as it turned out. The fears of fracking boom truck traffic on Rt. 2 in the Williston, ND area are overblown now that the boom has passed. In fact the widest shoulders of the trip started at the MT/ND state line and stayed fairly wide from there past Minot. They alternated between wide and narrow the remainder of the way across N.D.

I had to make a decision in Wolf Point, MT about following the ACA route south for about 100 miles to Circle, Glendive, and Wibaux, MT and then east to cross ND to Fargo or stay on Rt. 2. With all the local advice being that there was no reason to fear the traffic on 2 and with a really strong west wind behind me I stayed on 2 and ended up with 100+ miles on the day. The wind strengthened the following day and I netted 120 miles. It was good to have those miles in the bank with a bus to catch in Duluth at a specific time and a train connection to make in St. Paul at the end of the bus ride.

The winds seem to be pretty much westerly when the weather is dominated by high pressure but when storms roll through the area they shift to more easterly. I fought heading crosswinds (but never total headwinds) for almost four days as I exited ND and entered MN. It wasn't until I reached the forested part of MN that I got some relief from them. The winds shifted back to westerly for the remainder of the trip across MN despite continued rainy weather.

Not sure if local opinions regarding traveling through the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in MT were at all an additional factor in ACA's route change. Without the strong tailwind I would not have been able to get through the reservation starting in Glasgow and ending in Culbertson all in a single day. I was warned repeatedly by both whites and at least one native not to let night fall while still on reservation land. I was especially warned to avoid stopping in Poplar. I'll admit to having some strange encounters while crossing reservation land though I never felt my safety was at issue. It was also a Saturday and that might have been an additional factor.

In terms of highlights I recommend the Paul Bunyan Trail section from Bemidji to Walker as worth taking if you have the time to swing up that way. Can't speak to the Heartland Alternate section as an equally pleasant but shorter route to Walker. If I'd stuck to my original plan I would have gone that way. As it turned out I was ready to get a break from the Hi-Line (Rt. 2) and it was a very pleasant contrast. Had to rejoin 2 to reach Duluth but a day off was welcome.

No guarantees this info will hold up for next cycling season but if someone searches "Norther Tier" in the next few months wondering about route conditions and reads this, you're more than welcome to p.m. me for more specifics.

How was the hammock situation? Able to hang often? What were the low temperatures you experienced?

Hammocking turned out to be pretty easy. I found trees were fairly plentiful in the town parks where I camped and there were many of them: Chinook, Malta, Culbertson in MT and Stanley and Granville in ND. In some there were also picnic pavilions whose posts could serve to suspend the hammock. A pretty quiet spot in Church's Ferry, ND worked that way. I spent a night in some trees in the area of the Rt. 2 rest stop in Larimore, ND and alongside the Paul Bunyan Trail in MN. Once into the wooded section of MN finding trees ceased being an issue. I was really only forced to spend the night on the ground on two occasions, the former being the yard of a Warmshowers host and the second during a night of driving rain where the gazebo in the town park of Remer, MN was a drier bet than finding two trees somewhere.

Without an underquilt for the hammock (I use a 3/4 length Thermarest pad inside my sleeping bag instead) I sometimes felt the ground would have been warmer but it was never too cold for the hammock, provided I put on some extra clothes when needed. I'd say early morning temps in the mid to low 40s were experienced a couple of times.

Were the mosquitoes gone? When we passed through Chinook back in '99 it was dubbed the mosquito capital of Montana. Did you visit the county history museum there? We did. It was pretty neat.


We stayed in a private campground right outside the center of Malta. At night a truck with a giant fogger came through the campground spraying a cloud of something. I always assumed it was for mosquitoes.

I wouldn't say they were gone but their activity was hampered by the cold. As long as early evening temps were pushing the low 50s or high 40s I didn't have much mosquito trouble. That was the case through most of Montana. I did have some noticeable mosquito activity in Church's Ferry, ND where one encounters the first part of Devil's Lake when on an eastward route of travel. In that section the "lake" is a large area of marsh land. The weather was changing with a low front moving in and the evening temps were warmer due to the cloud cover. I was able to string up my hammock (between posts of a picnic pavilion) and so my mosquito netting was easy to deploy. I did need to use a headnet while sitting around preparing supper however.

I visited only the post office and library in Chinook but slept for free in Griffin Park (near the treatment plant) courtesy of the town (after asking permission from Chinook police officer Olsen) which was a tip from the ACA map/guide. I actually slept on the ground that night, though there were enough cottonwood trees in the park to have strung the hammock, because I wanted to test the ground sleeping system and see how warm it would be. In Malta I stayed in the town's Trafton Park for $5 and had two perfectly spaced trees for the hammock.

We stayed a south of there, in Minnewaukan. At the time, the town was slowly being inundated by the rise of Devil's Lake. Some business had closed and some residents had already moved away. Others were living in FEMA-type trailers, and there was an office set up to help residents obtain government aid. There was a church that had built a retaining wall and basin to deal with the rising water. One local told us that not too many years before we would not have been able to see the lake from the city park where we camped. I will have to pull out my old map for that section to see how we left town. I remember seeing that one road we were on had clearly been raised, and there was water on both side of the roadway. Wonder if that road is gone now.

Just found this on line:


https://www.minnewaukan.com/documents...ochure2014.pdf


The last part reads: "In the 1990s Devil's Lake was eight miles from Minnewaukan. Today it is lapping inside parts of the city."



BTW..My ride through MA was fine, except for a little rain both days in the state. The second day was pretty darn hard in the beginning:


https://ridewithgps.com/routes/16070756