North Dakota is an area of long drives. The vans took us up to Bennie's Cabin at mile 84 of the trail, where we divided up into 4 groups:
Hammerheads, who would ride 40 miles straight
2nd group, who would stop occasionally for breath and pictures, but ride about 22-40 miles
Rep group, who would do between 13-27 miles, stopping for more photos
4th group, who would do 13 miles and take lots of breaks
Okay, they were numbered 1 - 4 but the 1st group didn't intend to stop, and the 3rd group contained all the IMBA State Representatives.
Maah
Daah Hey means "grandfather" or "longevity", and the turtle symbolizes
perseverance. The trail is currently about 100 miles long, and it takes some
perseverance to travel this grandfather of trails. The area is arid, dusty,
and dry.
The sun beats on riders amongst the scrub and sagebrush, and everyone is concerned about carrying enough water. It's not monotonous, though. We started in a dry meadow, dropped through some hair-raising switchbacks through badland type formations, crossed a long, open valley, climbed sandy hillsides, bombed through gullys down to seasonal streambeds and back up, over plateaus, passing numerous grazing cattle. A good deal of the terrain was uphill, or at least that's how it felt.
At
mile 13, where we crossed a highway, one of the vans was waiting with water
- it tasted like Medora water, but heck, it was wet. We refilled our empty
camelbacks, rested, and then headed off through the area we'd done trailwork
on, through more open grasslands and up switchbacks to butte-tops.
A van met us in an open meadow at mile 22, and we climbed in while most of the rest of our group headed to mile 27. They beat the van by 15 minutes, because the connecting roads are few and far between.
Then by radio we found that a rider trailing group 2 had passed the previous
point, but hadn't shown up at the end. An ATV was sent out to find him, and
our van waited while the others headed back to town. The ATV found the guy
sitting in the shade of a transformer below devil's pass, watching the birds
circling overhead. He said he'd just come to the realization that the birds
were waiting for him to die when the ATV came up the hill. We renamed him
Vulture Paul and brought him home. 
No one really wanted to break up the conversation back in town, so we all ended up heading out for dinner at the Iron Horse together, much to the dismay of the waitress. John had headed out for home, but Gary was still staying in town and had an extra bunk in their room, so we stayed with him, leaving Medora the next morning.