Custer's Critters and the Badlands

2022-07-15
Custer State Park and Badlands SD

We decided to start the day with a trip around the Wildlife Road. We saw Pronghorn Antelope, Buffalo, prairie dogs, and a lot of different birds. We played it safe with the larger animals and only photographed from the car. Being out early meant that we could stop in the middle of the road for as long as we wanted. Most people aren't out at 6 AM. I will mention that we coined the term "butt-shot" as many animals turned their back on us (completely ignoring us as a threat), but I will stick to the pics that show the heads.

Talented bison: able to ignore antelope (background) and us at the same time.

This is uncropped. Objects in camera may be as close as they appear.

Also uncropped, at about 8 feet. At least she wasn't completely indifferent to us. We got a glance before the ignoring started.

We then tackled lovers Leap trail, starting from our campsite to cover the third of a mile to the trailhead. It was about a 5 mile hike with 711 feet of climb at 4000 feet of elevation. With the exception of the thinner air, t was a lot like hiking the Horse-Shoe trail, right down to the deer poop. The one difference is that their French Creek was a few miles further away from the trail.

With this view, why would you want to leap?

We decamped, and then stopped by the visitors center to fill our bottles with cold water before hitting the road. Cold water can make a surprisingly big difference in this heat.

We then got within visual distance of Mount Rushmore. I had no desire to go back there, but we are in Western South Dakota and Valerie has never seen it. So we got close enough that she can't say that anymore, but we compromised and didn't go and fight the traffic to actually walk in the National Monument. I'm sticking to my story that it's a museum with one exhibit.

After the visual sighting of the presidents was confirmed, we drove off to the Badlands and checked in at the campground. These KOA's are pretty spiffy with a store and prepared food and activities for the kids. We pitched our tent and immediately left the campground and headed out to the visitors center where we watched people cleaning fossils (lots of microscopes) as well as enjoying the AC as we looked at the history exhibits. It was in the high 90's in the Badlands this afternoon.

After the visitor center we did some scouting for the evening and tomorrow. We drove the loop road all the way to Wall, stopping at several overlooks to get a feel for what the light would be later. Since it was dinner time at the end of the drive we ate in Wall, and then headed back up the loop road stopping at a few more overlooks for more pictures.

All scouting was for naught as weather rolled in. We watched the thunderstorms on the horizon, and by the time we got back to camp we were part of the show. The thunderstorm came close to our location, maybe one mile off for the worst of the lightning. The storm eased up around 10:00 so we moved from the car to the tent and tried to get some sleep.

The river is dry, but the clouds promise to fix that.

Driving Distance: 125 miles

Hiking Distance: 5 miles