On August 11, 2021 I ran the Fort Ransom State Park Loop. For the past several months I’ve been looking for possible routes to fill the large gap on the route map between western North Dakota and central Minnesota. This loop is quite popular on AllTrails and provides a nice sampling of trails in the park.
I started from the parking lot north of the Pederson Hills Trailhead at 1:44pm and went counterclockwise. I went up the North Country Trail to the Redetzke Ridge Trail where the scenery really started to improve. The Redetzke Ridge, Nelson 80 and Pederson Hills Trails are nice rolling singletrack through fields and wooded valleys. I took a couple wrong turns and had to backtrack. There are a lot of side trails where you could get turned around if you aren't paying attention. I also stopped to take a lot of pictures.
I got back to the trailhead at 3:13pm. My watch didn't register the exact same start and end point, I think it had trouble recalibrating while I was going through all of the wooded river valleys. I also don't have it set to the shortest gps fix interval since that drains the battery on my Suunto absurdly fast. I didn't see anyone else on the trails except for a couple people getting ready to ride horses at one of the trailheads. I consumed 8 ounces of water and 100 calories. I ran by myself, unsupported.