September 2019

The last time I was at Badlands National Park we flew through so quickly I hardly remember what it looked like…but I knew it was cool and had always wanted to return. This time we had more time and visited the park on two separate days. The first day we were with our friend Andrea from Connecticut. We entered through the Pinnacles Entrance, just south of Wall, South Dakota.

After entering the park we took a right on the dirt Sage Creek Rim Road. We stopped along the way to take pictures and admire the view.

Next we drove through the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and saw a herd of buffalo in the distance.

We looped back to the Northeast Entrance and then drove the Badlands Loop Road to take us back to where we entered the park.

We stopped at the Fossil Exhibit Trail where Andrea and I took a short walk along the Castle Trail. We couldn’t go too far because it was getting late and the shadows were long.

 

After a couple more stops and some more pictures…

We came upon a herd of bighorn sheep. They were hanging around the parking lot at the Homestead Overlook and we had fun watching them for a while.

The sun was really getting low when we left the park and I got a cool picture of the shadow of our car on the hillside.

The day after Andrea left we went into the park again, where I planned to hike a few of the shorter trails. It was earlier in the day and you could really see the yellow in the hills along Badlands Loop Road.

We headed towards the Northeast Entrance where there are several shorter trails. The first one we stopped at was Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, a .5 mile moderate trail that follows a boardwalk and stairs through a juniper forest along the Badlands Wall.

After that we headed to the Window and Door Trails. I decided to hike Door Trail, a .75 mile round trip hike to view the Badlands through a break in the Badlands Wall.

We exited the park through the Northeast gate and headed back to the campground.

There is also a South Unit of the park, however it remains largely undeveloped and lacks roads and trails. This property was formerly a bombing range for training during WW II. Unexploded artillery continues to litter the area and cell phones can detonate these devices. We decided to stick to the North Unit : )

Badlands National Park is a great destination, especially in combination with Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park, all in proximity to the Badlands. Just go there!