When Erin and I started planning our driving trip across the northern US, we each picked out several things we wanted to do and places we wanted to see. Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Mt. Rushmore headed the list. We then had to make choices. I was surprised at how many national parks and national monuments there are in South Dakota. We wanted to spend more time in the Black Hills with its rugged rock formations, canyons and gulches; visit Wind Cave National Park with over 100 miles of underground passageways; see the historic town of Deadwood, an old mining town in the Black Hills long associated with gambling and shady characters, and the final resting place of Wild Bill Hitchcock and Calamity Jane. Unfortunately, we had to be in Chicago by a certain date and realized we could not possibly see it all. We finally decided on Badlands National Park, best known for its dramatic vistas and fossil resources, and where the famous dinosaur, Sue, was discovered 15 years earlier (Sue is now on display at the Field Museum in Chicago).We left Keystone early and headed east on I-90. Once past Rapid City, we began seeing signs for the town of Wall. Sign after sign after sign --- it went on for miles and miles --- advertising Wall Drugs. Even though we were on a tight schedule and Wall was definitely not on our itinerary, our curiosity got the best of us and we ended up stopping in Wall. Wall Drugs is a huge, old-time store that goes on forever and ever---it actually covers an entire city block. With its early west atmosphere, it reminded me of the type of stores you find at Knott’s Berry Farm. Unless you have lots of time I really don’t recommend stopping at Wall. However, I do commend the marketing person who thought up all those signs --- it worked. I can now say I’ve to Wall, South Dakota!
From Wall we took Highway 240 into Badlands National Park. The park encompasses over 240,000 acres of sculptured Badlands and mixed-grass prairie. With limited time, we selected the Badlands Loop Road, a 30-mile drive that would take us past several scenic outlooks, nature trails and the Ben Reifel Visitors Center. We entered the park through the Pinnacles Entrance and our first stop was the Pinnacles Overlook. Before us lay a vast expense of deep gorges and knife sharp ridges with rock layers “painted” in hues of red, gold and green.
Mother Nature has been at work. It’s hard to condense what took place over 75 million years, but it was a combination of shifting weather patterns and geological forces that transformed the area into what we now call the Badlands. According to park literature…”Forests flourished and withered away. Volcanoes laid down a thick layer of ash and rivers repeatedly flooded the region, depositing sediment. The black, muddy floor of the Pierre Sea apparently compressed into a band of 2,000-foot-thick shale. These successive layers of matter often held the bodies and bones of animals now long extinct and preserved for posterity as fossils.” Erosion did the rest. Wind and the rushing waters of rivers, now long vanished, eroded the dry, fragile soil, gouging out channels and gullies, and carving the cliffs, spires and odd rock formations you see throughout the park.
As we drove along the Loop road you can actually see the “layers of time.” Different amounts of red-brown iron oxide mixed in the sediments give varied hues to each layer. And each layer contains different fossils from the different geological periods. Over the years, paleontologists have found the fossilized remains of saber-toothed cats, miniature camels and horses, huge rhinoceros-like beasts and small squirrel-like rodents. Today, the Badlands area has the distinction of being known as having the world’s richest Eocene/Oligocene Epoch fossil beds.
We continued driving along the Loop Road, stopping several times at scenic overlooks to marvel at the magnificent vistas. We pulled out our binoculars in hopes of seeing some Bison or Bighorn Sheep, but never did manage to find any. There are also several self-guided trails, which are easily assessable from the Loop Road. The Fossil Exhibit Trail features fossil replicas and exhibits on now extinct creatures that once roamed the area. The trail is a quarter-mile and takes about 20 minutes. It is also wheelchair accessible. Other trails along the Loop include the Medicine Root Trail, the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, the Castle Trail and the Notch Trail --- all very in length and accessibility. Some are definitely more strenuous than others.
Half way through the Loop is the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. Besides the much welcomed “facilities,” the center offers an orientation program in the auditorium and has a small museum featuring natural and cultural history exhibits. The orientation program, a combination of a short film and a talk by a Park Ranger, is excellent and provided good background information on the area now known as “the Badlands.”Unfortunately, time was our biggest problem. In hindsight, I definitely would have planned an entire day to explore the area. Badlands National Park is opened year-round; however, not all of the facilities are open in the winter months. Accommodations in the park are limited. The Cedar Pass Lodge has small cabins with air-conditioning and private bath. It also has a full service restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. There are also several campgrounds operated by the National Park Service. If you’re into hiking, camping, backpacking, bicycling, wildlife viewing or horseback riding, and have an interest in geology and paleontology, Badlands National Park is a perfect vacation destination for the entire family.
Join us next week as we explore the “windy city” --- Chicago.
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