Badlands

2022-07-16
Badlands National Park, SD

Badlands National Park is a dry place which only receives 16 inches of rain per year. We were "lucky" enough to catch half an inch or so overnight in the thunderstorms. We did not know how this would affect things other than the obvious effect of making it humid. We found out that puddles and mud were one side effect (I thought that the dry earth might soak it in quickly), and overall things were a bit greener as well.

We started the morning early with hikes of Notch, Window, and Door. These are the standard three hikes at Badlands which all leave from the same parking lot. The morning light was nice although by the time we got everything going we had just missed the golden hour.

The Door Trail is actually a series of numbered poles at various points on the formations. You get to choose your own path in this 3D maze. There are no "right" answers, but there are definitely dead ends and the occasional ravine to avoid.

We then stopped at trail on the other side of the cliff to the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail and did a half-mile loop to look at the scenery. This area is a low point that holds moisture longer and thus has more trees as well as many signs of ancient camps. Completing this hike also had the benefit of finishing the pullouts on the east side of the visitor center which is also where the road from our campground intersected the loop road (which is only a loop if you consider I-90 as part of it.)

After breakfast we hiked an out-and-back on the Castle Trail. This is a prairie hike through some badlands formations. This time we encountered something the Badlands gets a lot of: heat. As the temperatures climbed into the mid 90's and the sun beat down we limited our hike to three miles. So far we have avoided any bad sunburn and there was no impetus to break that streak.

Heat sent us to the Minuteman Missile Museum and it's fine air conditioning. We watched the movie, checked out the exhibits, and drove up I-90 to the silo that is set up for display. We only managed to kill an hour or so, but it was interesting.

The silo isn't far from Wall so we decided to check out Wall Drug. It is "iconic" according to reviews. I found it to be more like a mall in one store, with different stuff like art, books, toys, and actual drug store stuff taking up different mini shops within the "store." There were also various areas to take pictures of your kids with different props, and a cafeteria where we ate lunch. I'm not a good shopper, but they are air conditioned and it got us past the heat of the day. We also wandered around main street which had the usual smattering of t-shirt and jewelry shops. They don't have as much of a boardwalk feel as Estes Park but with a little work they could get there.

Afterwards we headed back to camp for a while where we rested. I worked on this blog and Valerie kindly did a load of laundry because it was available. We tried to catch a few sunset pictures at the overlooks as well.

Driving Distance: 30 miles

Hiking Distance: 6 miles