Getting There

After spending nearly a week in South Dakota’s Black Hills region, it was a short drive over to Badlands National Park, just east of Rapid City off Interstate 90.  We did make a detour to Wall Drug.  If you’ve never heard of Wall Drug, it’s probably one of the most over the top klitchy stops in the country.  The whole region is covered in billboards advertising everything that Wall Drug sells.  And they sell EVERYTHING.  Anyway, we stopped for a magnet and a sticker and considered ice cream, but since we had a light hiking day, we opted out and drove the remaining few miles south to the park.

Is a Badland

Really Bad?

Before arriving, I had imagined that badlands were cool looking, inhospitable and irregular formations of land.  Close, but there is a lot of variety in the eroded sedimentary rock, especially the colors at different times of day.  The easiest ones to see and hike around are a few miles north of Ben Reifel visitor center at the Door/Window overlook.  These can be crowded, so we hiked out about a mile from the main overlook onto the rocks.  It’s a defined path, but you have to be careful as a misstep could land you a very painful drop down some very sharp cliffs.  Our favorite views/photos were from Badlands Loop Road to Panorama Point around sunset.

Wildlife

There are lots of bison, bighorn sheep, and prairie dogs throughout the park, but you may have to leave the main north/south park road to spot some.  We rode Ruby Sue several miles up the Sage Creek Rim Road and must have seen a dozen groups of bighorn sheep.  And we found a very large, very noisy prairie dog town.  Maybe it was mardi gras.  Most of bison we saw were in the distance, but as we left the park late in the afternoon one day, there was a large herd along the road.  My favorite photo was of a big guy scratching his side on one of the highway signs.  It looked like he’d done this before. 

Nightlife

It was very hot during our visit, but fortunately also very clear.  And no moon during the early evening, so the dark skies were phenomenal.  One night, we aimed to get Milky Way pictures at Toadstool Rock.  It’s not a major attraction during the day, but it’s a roughly 30-40 foot mushroom shaped rock sitting in a small canyon a couple miles from the main visitor center along the Loop Road.   It wasn’t just dark, it was DARK.  We parked Ruby up on the road and used our flashlights to slowly walk down into the canyon.  The stars were excellent.  Rainy worked her magic, coming up with several different creative ways to capture the shot.  On one of them, she was capturing the Milky Way behind the rock when a car passed by on the road above us.  Turned out the car lit up the rock perfectly and the picture was stunning.  After about 30 minutes of taking photos, we worked our way back out of the canyon.  On the way back to our campground, the road was dark and winding.  I told Rainy I’d take it especially slow to avoid any wildlife that might be out partying after dark.  Literally seconds after saying this, we came around a bend and were surprised by a huge bull elk right on the edge of the road.  We only slightly freaked out, then edged over to the opposite side of the road and passed without issue.

Our Favorite

Campsite

Our original itinerary had us staying two nights just outside the Interior entrance at the Interior Motel and RV Park.  We were enjoying photographing the park, plus we needed to do some laundry, so we stayed an extra day/night at the RV park.  We had read about a cool boondocking (free camping w/o hookups) spot outside the north side of the park, and we had no plans, so we headed there after our day driving the Sage Creek Rim Road.  We shared the huge bluff with probably 30 other RVs, but plenty spread out.  Our alarm woke us up before the sunrise and it was spectacular.  As a bonus, a group of bighorn sheep were coming up the hill right behind our rig.  There were herds of bison below in the distance.  Peaceful and beautiful.  If you’re travelling to Badlands in an RV and aren’t afraid to boondock, this is a winner. 

Badlands is an excellent park.  The rock formations are cool to see and learn about, but be sure to get away from the main road for smaller crowds and greater likelihood of spotting wildlife.  We definitely recommend finding a good overlook for a sunset photo (either Panorama Point or Pinnacles Overlook worked well for us).  Regardless, a trip to South Dakota and Badlands NP won’t disappoint.