So Much to See in this Area

2018-09-05
Badlands, Minuteman Missile Museum, Mount Rushmore SD

Today started at 6:00 AM like most of my mornings. It took about 40 minutes to break camp and eat breakfast. Afterwards I headed to some of the signature Badlands hikes. The Badlands is a bit like Congaree; it's a big park but not a lot of marked trails. Since I didn't want to head to the back country I settled for selections from the maybe 20 miles of marked trails.

The Notch trail is famous for its ladder. As you can imagine, it's harder going down than up. The engineers at MIT have played a prank where they took a cow to the top of the dome. It's not that hard to get a cow to go up steps, but nearly impossible to get it to go down. I have no idea how they managed to get Bessie out; maybe used a crane or something. At any rate, it was a little tricky but I'm sure the kids love it. I managed to hit the Notch just as the sun was rising over some low clouds which was a good time for pictures.

After that I walked down to the Window (just a point where you can look through the cliff) and the Door trail which takes you out into the badlands. These are the three signature trails for this park, and I cleared them by about 9:00 because there were few others on the trail. It's a really big parking lot so I knew that it would be crowded later but so far, so good. All told, about three miles of walking.

I had made a 10:45 reservation to visit the control room at the Minuteman Missile Museum. The bits of the museum are spread out; the exhibit part with the movie is at Exit 33, which is where I started.

Then off to Exit 27 where the control room was. The tour is only six people at a time because the control room is only built for two. It was quite impressive engineering. And the same systems are still in use today. They are analog, which means they can't be hacked with software; you'd have to start digging trenches. Lots of them. The rest of the facility was just normal bedrooms, kitchen, rec room, etc. but the guide felt like we weren't getting our money's worth if she didn't talk about VHS tapes.

My tour only had three people on it and Julie was our tour director. (The other ranger was so thrilled to say that when he decided I was old enough to remember Love Boat.) Besides me, there was a nice couple from Switzerland who shared some of their insight on the cold war. BTW, for those of you who play the license plate game, what is a Swiss plate worth? They shipped their RV over and are on a 6 month jaunt around the US. And a side note from future Chuck: they also happened to be the vehicle in front of me two days later entering Devils Tower.

The last part of the museum is an actual silo with an (ostensibly) inert missile in it. That's up at Exit 16 because each control room controls 10 silos which are at least six miles from the control room and at least three miles from each other, so it was 11 miles but the I-90 speed limit is 80 MPH so it goes really quickly. It was interesting to see what it looked like in situ. The Minuteman is a solid fuel rocket so it requires very little maintenance and the site shows it. And from the outside, it's just a three-foot-thick concrete slab flush with the surface so you'd barely notice it without the cyclone fence encircling it and all the motion detectors.

With the tour done, I headed back to the Badlands for a chance to see it from ground level. I hiked the Medicine Root trail / Castle trail loop from Saddle Pass which clocked in around five miles. It is a really nice hike with some sections of prairie grass and other sections in the rock formations. I saw some sheep and deer along the way as well. They ignored me of course. Saddle pass was a bit of a climb, but the rest was flat. However, going back down Saddle Pass (the stick of the lollipop) was challenging. The cliff is continuously eroding, crumbling into small pebbles and dirt granules. Apparently the sweeping crew was on holiday because it was like descending in a chute full of bb's. Needless to day I bounced on my butt once or twice, but no serious damage was done to the cliff.

With a fair percentage of the trails in the Badlands covered, I took the scenic overlook road out. I put my camera battery in to charge twice, leading to opportunities to see sheep and goats close to the road. I felt obliged to stop, reinstall the battery, switch to the wildlife lens, and then undo all of that only to redo it again just a mile or so further. I've seen this enough to know that it would be nice to be able to see what the road holds ahead, even for just a mile or two. I have seen people trying to take pictures of buffalo that will be dots in their pictures, not knowing that if they just go around the bend another half mile there are four or five within 40 yards of the road. I wonder if Bentley or Mercedes already has this feature?

I drove off the end of the scenic drive and continued on to Mount Rushmore. I spent about an hour there, after reaching the conclusion that it's like going to a museum or gallery with just one piece of art. It's definitely worth stopping and I was fascinated with the construction techniques as I am wont to be. However, unless you're an ice cream person and there's a long line, you shouldn't plan to spend that much time there. Furthermore, this explains why the entire surrounding countryside is plastered with tourist traps. Everything from mini golf to "tramways" that look like ski lifts to roller coasters to reptiles you can pet, it's all here. After spending a few minutes contemplating the art you will be off trying to keep the kids amused.

I also learned the term "shoulder season". This is the time with dwindling numbers of tourists but before there are so few it doesn't make economic sense to stay open. I don't know if this means the shoulder of a person (making the main season the head?) or if it's more like the shoulder of a road. At any rate, it means less crowds and shorter lines. It also has a dark side. The restaurant was out of all the good beer and half the food on their menu. And the store didn't have gallons of drinking water so I was forced to buy liters at about 3x the price. This was also the first store I visited on this trip, and the second restaurant after the night in Coldwater so I'm doing well at my plan.

Hiking Distance: 10 miles