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| Some folks exploring the Door Trail |
from Massachusetts, you'd get there first. The national park entrance is only a few miles (less than ten) from Interstate 90. I-90 is the same road that is the Mass Pike. It goes through Cleveland, Chicago and other big cities. It makes its way clear across the continent to Seattle.
Because of the highway, it is very easy to get to the Badlands and is on the "National Park Circuit". The crazy thing is, the average visitor only spends a couple hours in Badlands National Park! There is a loop road that leads from the highway, through scenic viewpoints in the park, then back to the highway. Total travel time is about an hour. Most visitors do this loop, stop for some pictures and keep heading for Rushmore.
I am not wired that way. I need to explore an area. I'd much rather see everything in one place than the highlights in three. However, the Badlands is easy to see in a short amount of time. If you have never been there, I'd recommend spending two full days there. More than that, if your not back country hiking, things will get redundant.
A word of warning, the weather is extreme in the Badlands. The winters get the Canadian winds blowing down. The summer temperatures can and do easily reach 100 degrees. There is little shade. This was the second time I went. Both times were in the end of June. Three of the accumulated five days were approaching one hundred.
This trip, we drove there one morning from Custer, spent the whole next day, and drove back to the Black Hills on day 3. On the first day, the temperature topped out at 107! I took a picture at Wall Drug late in the afternoon and it was still 104. We did get lucky, on day two, the temp topped out in the high eighties. That night a front came in dropping the night time sleeping temp into the high fifties. When we left at 7 am, the reading was 61 degrees. The high was expected to reach the low eighties.
Unlike many national parks, you can walk anywhere you want in the Badlands. There are very few trails. However, if you park your car at any pulloff or parking area, (not on the grass) you are free to explore anywhere you want. This sounds amazing, but the topography is foreboding. It doesn't take a
The loop road is where almost all visitors go. It is paved. The Visitor Center is a few miles in from the eastern entrance. Just past the VC is the main park campground. Right where the loop road starts to head back north towards the highway at the western end, is a dirt road that heads southwest. This dirt road goes into the Sage Creek Wilderness. There is a campground eleven miles down this road. The Sage Creek Campground is nothing more than a dirt road that makes a circle. There are two portajohn type bathrooms and a couple picnic tables. You are free to camp anywhere you want inside the loop and a few spots outside of it. The campground is FREE! There are no other amenities such as showers or running water. The scenery is spectacular, it is considered one of the top ten best free campgrounds in the entire world. The pay campground has other amenities.
What it does have is scenery and wildlife. On the eleven mile drive from the main road we saw prairie dogs, burrowing owls, red tailed hawk, pronghorn, mountain bluebirds, long billed curlew, bison, and bighorn sheep!
There isn't a fence around the campground. Any of those animals can visit. As a matter of fact, some prairie dogs live right in the camping area. There was dried buffalo chips (poop) everywhere. We stayed here the two nights and I absolutely love it. We were there on the weekend, so it was pretty busy. However, open fires are not allowed (fire hazard on the prairie) so everyone goes to bed early.
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| Sage Creek Campsite |
We did almost every actual trail in the park. Most of them are very short leading to a viewpoint. In an ironic twist of fate, DJ's friend James was vacationing in the park. We ran across him at the visitor center and ended up sleeping near his site one night. He told us about three trails that lead off from one huge parking lot. The three trails, Window Trail, Door Trail, and Notch Trail vary from a hundred yards to two miles.
The Window Trail is really just a short walk to an overlook. It has a great view but to call it a hiking trail is a stretch. Next we did the Door Trail. This is a little over a mile. It think it is called the Door Trail because it feels like you are going in the back door to get a view. The trail winds around a Badland Formation on a boardwalk until it is out of site from the road, like going in the backdoor. The boardwalk ends but if you follow it longer it comes to a viewpoint of a canyon. This is really a playground, although the trail ends, you are allowed to go off trail, so people were exploring their own little nooks and crannies.
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| A view in the Notch Trail. Pic does not do it justice |
Later in the day I did the Saddle Trail. This a steep trail that climbs from the bottom of the Badlands up to the shelf of the prairie. It is hard, steep, and the rock and sand is very loose. Laurie started up this trail but dipped when it got steep. I kept going. It is not overly long, but it was hard. On the way back I came down on my but and hands for a hundred foot section. It was too steep to try to walk down. It was fun to do, but the scenery at the top was the same as looking from the Visitor Center into the prairie. By far, my favorite trail of the day was the Notch Trail.
Wildlife
I could easily do a separate post about the Badlands Wildlife. I'll try to keep this fairly brief. There is
There is a bighorn sheep herd that lives just off the main loop road. It is much bigger than when I visited six years ago. When I saw them then, the herd was about twenty. This trip I saw at least 50 different bighorn sheep!!!
I have been told the big males that you would see in nature documentaries stay clear of roads because they do not really tolerate people. This seems to be the case, every place I have ever seen bighorn it has always been ewes, lambs, and young males. So it was quite a surprise one afternoon to be driving to the campsite and seeing a massive old ram.We saw him the following morning as we were leaving for the Blackhills. Only this time, he was with his bachelor group. There were about five big rams in the group just feet from the road. I knew how special the moment was and stayed and watched them for quite a while.
Most people want to see buffalo when they visit South Dakota. I never had to search for them. Anytime a car or two was pulled off to the side of the road, I was sure buffalo were in the area. However, my Badlands highlight was the big ram. A few days later, when asked by a ranger what the highlight of my vacation was so far, without hesitation I told her about the big ram in the Badlands.
Please take a minute to scroll through the photos of the incredible Badlands Wildlife below. I hope you enjoy them.
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| Baby Swallows |
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| Meadowlark |
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| Mountain Bluebird |
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| Burrowing Owl |
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| Mule Deer |
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| Nursing lamb |
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