The signature 360° scene for this site will embed here after the Medora → Long X capture trip (target May–June 2027 paddling window, post-consultation).
Every paddle of the Little Missouri starts here. So does every honest telling of the corridor's history.
Cottonwood Campground sits inside the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, two miles north of Medora and a short walk from the river. The put-in here is the most-paddled, best-documented launch on the entire Little Missouri. USGS gauge 06336000 is half a mile upstream; paddlers check it before they put a boat in the water. The NPS recommends a minimum of 2.5 ft for fair paddling — below that, the river runs through cottonwoods on a riverbed and not much else. Above 4 ft, summer thunderstorms can push it into a debris-laden torrent.
Medora itself is the postcard town. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library opens on July 4, 2026, on a 93-acre site about 1.5 miles west of town with its rooftop sightlined directly at the Little Missouri River valley and the Elkhorn Ranch site downstream. The Library opening is the timing peg for everything downstream of this put-in.
The same river bottom paddlers launch from — the strip of cottonwoods between Medora and the National Park boundary — is where General Alfred Sully's column of roughly 2,200 U.S. Army troops camped on the night of August 6, 1864. The Battle of the Badlands opened the next morning, just downstream of where Cottonwood Campground stands today.
The land predates the campground, the park, and the town by centuries. Mandan, Hidatsa, and Lakota presence in this corridor is documented in trade routes, winter encampments, and sacred sites that the South Unit interpretive program is only now beginning to surface. A profile of the put-in that opens with "the gateway to TR's wilderness" is missing roughly nine-tenths of the story.
Directions. I-94 Exit 27 (Medora). Cottonwood Campground is 5 mi north on the Scenic Loop Road inside TRNP South Unit. River access is a short walk through the cottonwoods.
Season. May–June. Check USGS 06336000 before launching; NPS minimum 2.5 ft.
Fees. TRNP entry fee or America the Beautiful pass.
Accessibility. Campground accessible; river bank itself requires walking ~100m through cottonwoods on uneven ground.
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