GT of 2020: Badlands Edition – Dustin Lee Rhodes

Never been to the Badlands in South Dakota?

Go.

I made an extended stay there, and I’m delighted I did so, although I wouldn’t want to live there. It is a magnificent piece of country. I mainly adventured in the North Unit of the national park.

Buckle yourselves in, lovelies. This is going to be a looooong post, as I was there for a looooong time.

Not bad land – bad temperatures

My first full day there, it was 99°F in the shade, and you can bet your ass I stayed in the shade. I was very glad indeed that I had chosen the klassy KOA campground, since there was a pool to cool off in. I drove the Badlands Loop (Hwy. 240) in the blissful comfort of my beloved, AC-equipped pickup truck. It’s a fun drive and there is a LOT to look at.

I had to give in and actually put ice in my cooler to keep myself supplied with cold water. Iced water became my preferred indulgence over the week.

Even on the nice days, it was still in the low to mid 80s- nice in the shade, but blistering in the sun when you’re standing on bare rock in the Badlands. The comfortable hours of the day were from 19:00 to maybe 8:00 or 9:00 the next morning. Those of you who know me moderately well know I am not a morning person, generally speaking. However, I was forced to adapt to my environment, rising at 6:00 or 7:00 to start running and hiking. Some of the cooler days, I kept going till 13:00, but usually by noon I was toasted. Not the fun kind of toasted.

Are we humans, or are we goats?

This is a question I often found myself asking as I hiked the Badlands.

All right, let me back up. You pay a $30 entrance fee for Badlands National Park, but it lasts for a week. This seeming to be an outrageous price of admission for a place that does not have a single flush toilet ANYWHERE, I insisted on spending quite a lot of time in the park. I’d go running there. I’d shower up at the campground and go back for a hike.

I carefully planned my long runs and hikes for cooler days, and the more driving-intensive excursions for the warm days. I stopped at every overlook on the Badlands Loop. I hiked every trail in the park. There aren’t a lot of those, so I ventured out into the backcountry eventually, which was fun, if slightly unwise. Badlands NP allows you to hike anywhere you please, which is decent of them.

My first hike, I did the Castle Trail as a loop and took the Medicine Root Trail detour because it was there. A little over ten miles? I went back and did Castle Trail twice more during the week, as a cross country run. It isn’t steep, since it’s up after you’ve gone through the passes to get to the high parts of the park. The eastern end skirts the badlands on the end of the prairie, and the western end of the trail is smack in the middle of the rock. I saw a number of bighorn sheep from it. (They look extremely tasty. Think of the steaks you could get out of those critters!)

The weather app on my phone lied to me, and I did the remaining trails (all relatively short, but some steep, ~~dangerous~~ FUN scrambles) after a six mile run on a day when it turned out to be 94°F. No worries. I packed a lot of water and my body handles dehydration very well. I AM GOAT. Not that kind of GOAT. The bleating, hopping, rock climbing kind of goat.

Saddle Pass Trail is a probably the best 0.25 miles of trail in the park. Notice that 0.25 mile bit? Yeah, all the out of shape folks looking for a short hike notice it, too, and don’t read about how it is a freaking goat trail up the Badlands Wall. I wisely went up without a pack- needed my center of gravity as low as possible. Look at the amazing pictures I got.

Well, that was an entertaining near-plunge to my death.

Plus, once I got to the top… Trail? What trail? The trail was so 15 minutes ago. Too many fun things to climb. BRB. Gotta check if I have a fear of heights yet.

Drinking. So. Much. Water.

If you’re a tourist looking for all the thrills of a great Badlands hike without much danger of serious bodily injury, Door Trail is a good bet. I went scrambling over the rocks at the end of the boardwalk. Saw a bighorn ewe. Watched her plunge right over the edge of a cliff, thought for sure I had just seen sheep suicide, ran to the edge to see how flat she was… and saw her gamely bounding up the other side. Those bighorn sheep are insanely agile. I really never thought I’d wish I was a sheep, and these ones are ugly sons of guns, but…. It must be fun to be able to go up and down terrain like that without the slightest hesitation.

The other trails are all short little jokes that are not really trails, except for Notch Trail. It is near a major overlook on the Badlands Loop where lots and lots and lots of tourists pull over for pictures. They put up so many warning signs for this one. Why? in order to get up to the good view, you either need to scramble up a rope-ladder thingy or an extremely steep, gravel covered… well, I thought it was entertaining, but the people who went up before me were less than amused, got stuck, and looked about to have a heart attack. Pro tip: go up the gravel slide and down the rope ladder. You’ll find a line of people at the bottom waiting for there to be a break in people descending from the top. There won’t be one. Go to the left and for the love of all that’s holy don’t stop moving on your way up.

If you bypass the rope ladder business, there’s a dead end overhang that has birds’ nests built on the side of the wall. It has shade and the nests are cool.

Exploring and learning

Get high enough up the north end of the park, and even on hot days the wind blowing up from below cools it off. You can smell the junipers in the air (they populate the sheer drop under you). It’s all so vast and still. Able to sit, drink tea, and write with windows open in a scenic overlook parking lot (Ancient Hunters- most of the cars passed it by, but it is uniquely peaceful). You can be damn sure I set the parking brake.

Also, at the north end of the park, you’re able to see lower layers of strata in the rock formations, and these have the truly eye-popping colors- gold, purple, red.

Yellow mounds, fossil rich layers- colors!!

Wildlife sightings- lots of bighorn sheep (mmmmmhhh meat….), a coyote (heard them almost every night)…. At a certain point, you can pull off the Badlands Loop and see prairie dogs gamboling around their holes. Darn things are cute, although they have the oddest tails- not at all in proportion to their bodies. You can’t get very close to them without them popping down a hole, but a pair of binoculars took care of that for me. These creatures make an awful racket, cheaping like chicks. The noise seems to start in their tail and ripple all the way forward to their mouths. They sure put a lot of effort into it, anyways. I guess they are prairie moles?

Oh, all those rocks making up the buttes and spires and everything else? They’re largely made up of something called popcorn rock. You see something like this up close:

A sign in the park claimed prairie used to cover over half the continent, but less than 2% remains. The Badlands area preserves a chunk of 64,000 acres of prairie. [I’ve seen varying other numbers as I sought to verify this on the internet, but, suffice it to say, there is not a lot of prairie left.] It’s mixed-grass prairie- grasses of different heights. It’s too dry for trees, for the most part, but not too dry for grasses. I think I already mentioned the prairie smells fantastic.

While the Conata Road itself is not worth driving, if you go as far as the picnic area, you can wander around and pick up an unmarked trail or two. It must be a common place to access the backcountry. The trail peters out after about a half hour (at least the one I chose did); you can choose to skirt the Badland Wall or go strike off on safari.

Tree friends

There are very, very few tree friends around the Badlands. Most of them were out of the Badlands National Park, honestly, by the White River, which was where my campground lay.

However, their scarcity made me that much more excited when I met a tree in the park.

The cottonwoods are such nice trees, with their textured bark and pretty, heart-shaped leaves that have a lovely waxy coating on them- I suppose that helps them survive, a great deal. I could pet those leaves for hours. They feel wonderful!

The juniper trees fascinated me. They crop up in the most unexpected places- in the middle of the prairie, clinging to the side of a butte. Apparently the Rocky Mountain Junipers can live up to 300 years, and the birds scatter the juniper berries far and wide, explaining why I saw them in so many unexpected places. Most of them aren’t any taller than I am. A lot of them, I think, would be shocked to learn that other trees grow together in great groups called forests. So many of these junipers were solitary- not another tree for miles around.

I also saw black locusts and some kind of willows, but I am uncertain if these are native to the area or were planted there by humans. There are allegedly cedars and pines growing about the park, although I did not encounter any that I noticed.

Thunderstorms

The first thunderstorm that came through while I was camping (gorramn do I love my tent, my dry, dry, lovely, tent!) was disappointing. The storm moved at a snail’s pace, skirted my location, and I kept taking shelter only to emerge fifteen minutes later after the few drops of rain stopped and the thunder faded. The storm never went anywhere. It was strange.

Then, a few days later, came the storm that was everything I ever imagined a storm on the prairie would be, and more. At 18:26 Friday, a mighty rush of wind came. Never experienced anything else like it. Heard the wind coming at me- turned around and watched it bearing down (no, I couldn’t see the wind, but I sure could see the effects it made on the surroundings). This massive gust came thru, bring colder air and the rest of the wind with it- precursor of the thunderstorm. My tent stayed fast! But what a crazy thing. From that first blast of wind on, it was just magnificent blowing in. Much more like what I thought a storm moving in across the prairie towards you would be like.

It’s always the neighbors

The horseflies (or whatever kind of biting fly lives in the area) are absolutely vicious. They don’t care about your long sleeves or bugspray- I think they probably roll around in it for cologne. They’re fast, too, and boy do they hurt when they bite.

I went for a run along Rte. 44. The native peoples who live on Pine Ridge Reservation have shut their borders and established a plague checkpoint (rightly so, considering how isolated the reservation is and how difficult it must be to access medical care), but they very graciously allowed me through “as long as you turn around and run back.” Fair. The views of the Badlands were very nice.

Last night, the campground had the misfortune of neighbors who (a.) did not realize that tents aren’t soundproof, and (b.) were noisy. If I wanted that kind of noise, I’d stay at a cheap motel. Also, a query- for a two night camping trip, do you really need a full truck bed plus a twelve foot trailer of more stuff? By the time you’re done setting up all your crap, you don’t have time to use it before you take it down. Plus you look ridiculous. Buy an RV already.

Anyways, the neighborette sauntered by this morning when I was packing up. “Where are you going back to?” she asked. I took an instant dislike to her. Who says I’m going back anywhere?

“Back on the road,” I replied. Duh. Dumb bitch. I gave her a pause, and then followed up with, “You look a little sore this morning.”

“Oh… yeah?”

“Yeah, you really do,” I smirked. Both neighbors hid until I left- and I mean hid, behind their truck, behind their trailer, anything to not make eye contact with me. So, not exhibitionists, then. Just morons who are likely to reproduce.

Miscellaneous

I have rather fallen in love with dried/powdered milk. Pour it into a water canteen, shake, drink. No refrigeration, no mess. It thickens up mac and cheese great, instead of actual sour cream or yogurt.

There wasn’t actually any nearby civilization. I was camped maybe five minutes outside the town of Interior, pop. 94- a Presbyterian church and a grocery store on Main St., and a one room shack labeled “city jail.” Didn’t even have tomatoes at the store- pretty thin on “fresh” produce at all. I think well over 60% of the dwellings were battered mobile homes. Just imagine living in a town like that… Actually, I’d rather not.

I did drive up to Wall, SD, which is not so much civilization as civilized highway robbery. I stuck my head in Wall Drugstore- ever been somewhere and it just gave you a slimy, grossed-out feeling? Yup. It wasn’t even fun browsing all the trinkets designed to separate tourists from their money. Pass.

Mud the day after a rainstorm in the Badlands is slippery as owl shit- never experienced anything else like it, and it dries on your boots the consistency of solid concrete, as it does in the wild.

Oh, the White River? It isn’t white because of rapids. It’s white because of sediment.

Drive to Rapid City

There’s really only one place that qualifies as civilization between the Badlands and the Black Hills, namely, Rapid City, SD, pop. 67,000. In fact, it is perhaps something more than civilization, since it boasts TWO Walmarts.

So, this morning I broke camp and set out from Interior, SD. My GPS couldn’t find a signal, but I had a vague recollection of seeing that Rte.44 ran from Interior to Rapid City. I therefore headed west on 44 to see what would happen.

Well.

It turns out that the drive from Interior to Rapid City on 44 is just as beautiful as the drive along the Badlands Loop. I can’t say whether taking I-90 instead is of any interest, but I do vouch for Rte. 44 being very much worthwhile.

It’s freaking gorgeous. It’s a mixture of badlands and prairie- grass and all the gorgeous rock formations. It’s almost more exciting than the Badlands Loop, since there you’re just constantly overwhelmed by this huge vista that’s nearly too big to comprehend, all the time. On Rte. 44, it’s small enough you can comprehend it. You can see a butte coming up and appreciate it individually, and you can see little bits of rock peeking up and see what their colors and striations are. To me, it looks like the Old West, and also something that could/should have been in The Lord of the Rings movies. You’re going through the Buffalo Gap Grasslands, and you’re also going through a little snipped of Bandlands NP. You’re driving along the Conata River Basin- so you’re in a basin. You can see you’re in a depression and that the lips of these cliffs, rock walls, are coming up towards you. Out through them you’re back in grassland.

I actually saw a herd of bisons- small herd grazing in the grasslands in Buffalo Gap.

Climb out of the Basin, you’re back on the tableland and it’s all these rolling hills and prairie- so it’s not flat prairie, and every now and then you go down into a little depression where there are trees, cuz there’s water there. Just as you get out of the basin, there’s a gigantic sunflower farm on your left, and you can see mountains dimly in the distance- assume those where the Black Hills I’m heading towards. I think I might want to be a sunflower farmer when I grow up. These fields of sunflowers are just fantastic. I’m very lucky that I’m driving by them right now when they’re all in bloom.

I drove over the Cheyenne River- it’s always been something in songs and stories to me, so to drive over it is cool.

So, Rapid City. It may have a population of 67,000, but at 10:00 on a Sunday morning, this place is dead. They do urban sprawl here better than anywhere else I’ve ever seen.

I’m nonetheless excited to be here. Not because of the coffee shop I selected for sitting- look, it’s an okay setting to sit and write, my chai latte is okay, and my lemon creme pastry was so-so… but, I mean, if I’m emerging from Nowheresville and cooking over a camp stove for over a week, when I eat something in your shop, I should be ecstatic. Dunn Brothers coffee is getting a 4/10, here.

No, I am excited because there are trees here. I didn’t appreciate exactly how much I missed being surrounded by trees until I approached the city limits and there they were- blessed, beautiful trees, not one or two or perhaps a small struggling contingent, but trees comfortably spread out all around. They make me glad.

I am also nearly gleeful to be going shopping at Walmartians. I am excited about buying water and more butane (no-cook meals and cold-brew tea for the last two days for me) and SOAP.

Wow. Hasn’t my world turned into a strange place.

Speaking of which….

The hills have… uranium

Wait, what?!

Apparently the segment of Buffalo Gap National Grassland that I just drove through… well, let’s be glad I didn’t stop. There’s non-negligible uranium deposits lying around. Source is a story about trying to protect SD National Guard going there for training exercises.

I’ll check to see if my teeth glow in the dark tonight. Don’t worry, it looks like I should live… I may just shine a little brighter. Ouch.

Further investigation reveals that there are significant uranium deposits in the Black Hills, and Azarga Uranium is looking to start mining near Edgemont (southwest corner of the Black Hills). The Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation is not happy. According to this uranium was mined from open pits in the area from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Think I’ll try to steer clear of the uranium while I’m visiting the Black Hills. Packed my compass… forgot the damn Geiger counter. Oh well.