Badlands National Park

Monday July 2, 2012

After travelling for hundreds of miles on I-90 and seeing rolling country side, the badlands jump out as you approach the exit off I-90.  Looking south from the highway you see low mountains jut up from the ground.  Then you lose sight of the badlands until you actually enter the park. We got to the park around 6PM and had a solid 2 hours of sun still.  You have more sun out here in the west – at least it seems that way.

At the first stop within the park you get great views of the badlands and associated river valley.  The first views are amazing and hard to grasp.  You just want to take a photo in every direction. I won’t even try to describe the geological processes creating these lands.  The photos should say everything.  



 We stopped and had dinner at the Cedar Pass Lodge and then stayed for a Ranger evening program about the night sky.  A little frustrating because what should have been almost a full moon for the program was clouded over.  Oh well.  Did get one great photo of the moon over the badlands before the clouds came in.


Tuesday July 3, 2012

Went back to Badlands National Park and started with a nice hike on the Notch Trail.  The trail brings you up to the top of a hill and offers views in multiple directions.  We needed to climb a log ladder and walk along steep cliff sides with signs like “Dangerous Cliff Keep Right”.  A little intimidating but exhilarating at the same time.  We made it to the top and were able to look out over the entire river basin.  We then hit the visitor center and finally purchased our “passport”.  This is a log book of all the national parks, monuments, recreational areas, historic areas, etc.  The goal is to get a “cancellation” stamp at each location.  I think there are over 400 hundred locations throughout the US.

Next to the visitor center is an archeological dig.  Seems like a 7 year old girl found a prehistoric cat skull and they have not cordoned off an area about 50 ft by 50 ft to dig for more fossils.  The guide indicated they have only been finding smaller fossils but tons of them.  He expected the dig site to continue for maybe 30 to 40 years because of how slow the process is and how many fossils were being collected.

As we traveled from the visitor center we focused on seeing wildlife.  We spotted a big horn sheep but could not get a photo.  We saw a large herd of bison / buffalo (no difference by the way).  And we saw the prairie dogs.  We were joking later with Phil and Betsy about having a totem.  Not sure of the exact meaning of the word but gathered it meant the animal that you connect with the most.  For a moment I thought Aileen’s totem was the prairie dog.  She loved them.  They sit in the “towns” atop of their mounds and watch you while chirping away to each other.  Very cute.  A type of owl seems to co-exist within the towns because they sit on the dogs mounds all the time.

We needed to head west toward Mt Rushmore and the best route was 30 miles over a dirt road – doing 60mph. Crazy but it worked. Aileen was a little worried about her car!