USFS National Forest System Trails · Dakota Prairie Grasslands · North Dakota · Updated June 2026
Buffalo Gap (USFS trail 7010) is a 19 mi trail in Dakota Prairie Grasslands, North Dakota. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed year-round, with no Class 1 e-bike designation on record.
Can I bike Buffalo Gap?
| Use | Status | Season on record |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain bike | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 1 e-bike (pedal-assist, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 2 e-bike (throttle, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 3 e-bike (pedal-assist, 28 mph) | Restricted | — |
Zooming out: across Dakota Prairie Grasslands, 100% of rideable trail miles are open to mountain bikes — a Bike Access Grade of B.
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About this trail
Buffalo Gap (USFS trail 7010) runs 19 mi through Dakota Prairie Grasslands in North Dakota. Everything below comes straight from the US Forest Service National Forest System Trails dataset — length, surface, slope-derived difficulty, and the specific bike and e-bike designations on record — so you can check legality before you load up. Underfoot, the trail is recorded as native material. USFS slope data puts it in the Easy band (grade band 5-8%), meaning a gentle climb — keep in mind this measures steepness, not trail technicality. Mountain bikes are allowed, open year-round in the data. No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on this trail in the USFS data, so treat it as a non-motorized route unless a posted order says otherwise. The route is mapped as USFS Trail Class 3 on the agency's 1-to-5 development scale, where 1 is the most primitive, minimally maintained tread and 5 is the most developed. Because conditions, closures, and local orders change between data refreshes, confirm the current status with the managing ranger district before you ride.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you mountain bike on Buffalo Gap?
- Yes. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed on Buffalo Gap in Dakota Prairie Grasslands, year-round, per USFS data.
- Are e-bikes allowed on Buffalo Gap?
- No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on Buffalo Gap in the USFS data.
- How long is Buffalo Gap?
- Buffalo Gap measures about 19 mi in total, summed across its mapped National Forest System segments.
- What is the surface of Buffalo Gap?
- USFS data records the tread surface of Buffalo Gap as native material.
- How difficult is Buffalo Gap?
- Its grade-based difficulty is Easy (grade band 5-8%), derived from USFS slope data. This reflects steepness, not technical mountain-bike difficulty.
How we read this data
Grade-based difficulty above is the USFS grade (route steepness), not a technical mountain-bike rating — a gentle-grade trail can still be rocky or technical, and vice versa. Bike and e-bike status come verbatim from the USFS managed-use fields for this trail; we never infer access we can't cite. See our methodology for how the dataset is built and what each field means.
Where it is
Approximate location of Dakota Prairie Grasslands (USFS trail geometry isn't mapped).
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