Badlands National Park

Badlands National Park is home to some scenic rock formations carved from the landscape over a period of some 500,000 years. But what is somewhat surprising to me is that they just appear seemingly out of nowhere as you’re driving along. Surrounded by hundreds of miles of flat Prairie, one suddenly comes upon the formations that make up the National Park.

The National Park lands were built up over a period of 50 million years through the deposition of various layers of rocks and dirt from inland seas and rivers and even the winds themselves. This disposition phase ended some 28 million years ago, though the erosion phase only started 500,000 years back.

The entire formation is slowly moving northward. However, in another 500,000 years scientists estimate that the entire formation will have completely eroded away, so it was fortunate that I was able to see it this year.

We reached the park entrance early in the morning. Just beyond the entry station was our first pulloff with a fantastic view of the rock formations that make up this park. I was particularly fascinated by the banding one sees in the sides of the hills, particularly a reddish band that appeared at various layers up the sides. I’m curious as to the cause of this banding. Generally, a reddish color would indicate iron but I’m not sure if that is the case here. Later in the day we also saw some yellow banding on the hills.

After a couple of stops we reached the park’s Visitor Center. As usual, we took in a short movie about the park, wandered through a few exhibits and paid a quick visit to the gift shop. We then headed out on the main road through the park stopping frequently at the various overviews and occasionally taking the short boardwalk trips to get a closer view of some of the formations.

Original intent was to go to the western edge of the park then backtrack a short way and head back to our accommodations in Wall, South Dakota, but as it was during lunch time we decided to alter our plans and head directly into wall for lunch, then head to Minuteman Missile National Historic site for the afternoon.

Our weather continued to be hot but sunny making for generally pleasant days and great scenery.

Steve