Badlands National Park

Yesterday, I toured and camped out in Badlands National Park. Up close, each spike is just a pile of washed away dirt, but as an expanse it's a prehistoric land of the lost.

Although South Dakota's Badlands look like a place dinosaurs would have lived, when the ancient reptiles roamed the Earth this area was at the bottom of a shallow sea. Only fossils of aquatic creatures from that time have been found in the park.

I arrived at the park's northeast entrance just after 11:00 a.m. South Dakota, in addition to being geographically split by the Missouri River into an eastern farming half and western ranching half, is also broken into two time zones. While Mitchell is in the Central Time Zone, the Badlands are on Mountain Time. So I pocketed an extra hour.

The first pull-off after paying the $15 entrance fee is appropriately named Big Badlands Overlook. It showcases the grandeur of countless cliffs, canyons, and hoodoos extending far into the distance. Continuing along Highway 240, there are many more pull-offs, some offering brief hikes into the crevices between dusty spires.

I ventured along a number of these trails, but a couple stood out. Notch Trail requires climbing a ladder made of logs and ropes and venturing along a few precarious ledges. The view from the gap in the rock the trail is named after reveals the vast prairies of the White River Valley.

The Cliff Shelf Trail lies beneath the notch on the other side of the wall. The crushing weight of the rock sheet that fell from the notch long ago caused the ground to became more dense, allowing water to collect, vegetation to grow, and wildlife to flourish. The bushy, piney greenery stands in stark contrast to most of the park's barrenness.

After the highway dips through the plateau of pinnacles making up The Wall, park visitors arrive at the visitor center. I learned here that the Badlands did not exist 500,000 years ago and will not exist in another 500,000. The dirt and rock formations are eroding at a rate of one inch per year. The land was once a flat floodplain and will be again...just not for a while.

Climbing back up the imposing rock wall, the road offers many more scenic pull-offs including Pinnacles Overlook. As I gazed out across the field of stone incisors, I thought this must have been how Frodo and Sam felt approaching Mordor.

Just a few miles farther, visitors are given the choice between continuing on the unpaved Sage Creek Road or exiting the park by way of Wall, South Dakota. I took the Sage Creek route and saw wildlife including prairie dogs, a burrowing owl, and bison. The bison were my favorite. I snapped a few pictures from perhaps fifteen feet away--safely inside my car.

Twelve miles up the unpaved road, Sage Creek Campground is encircled by gentle hills. I set up tent here (thanks for letting me use it, sis) and plotted my next day's adventures in the long-lasting evening light. When it was finally dark, the sky sparkled thicker with stars than I can ever recall seeing it.