Badlands National Park
Exploring Badlands National Park, South Dakota
General Information:
It is a little over an hour away from Rapid City, SD via I-90.
There are two sections of the park-- don't feel bad about not going to the south section. Unless you are flying over it it is hard to see from the road and there is nowhere to hike into it. There is a visitor center for the south section but it was closed while we were there because of covid. Also most of it is on gravel roads which is rough to travel on.
It costs $30 to get into the park for 7 consecutive days
There are multiple entrances into the park- I put down our recommended route below
Badlands Missile Sites
So during the cold war two missile sites were created near badlands national park that stored nuclear missiles. You can visit them if you feel so inclined- they are on exits 116 and 127 on I-90. We attempted to go to at least one of them but accidentally missed them both because we were very engrossed in our book on tape (I know nerd alert but it was a good book). Also the signage for both exits is not great just a fair warning- we found they kind of snuck up on us.
There is a Missile site visitor center on exit 131 the same exit as the Northeast entrance for Badlands National Park. I would recommend checking it out. It has a small exhibit on the history of the missile sites and the reasons for their existence. They also have a NP stamp if you are a collector.
Ignore my finger- I couldn't figure out how to crop this out on the blog
Badlands National Park- Recommended Route
Ok so I know this is a terrible map quality but this is just to give you an idea of where things are when I make suggestions.
So when coming from Rapid City the closest entrance is the Pinnacles entrance. I would recommend driving down I-90 to exit 131 and entering through the Northeast Entrance.
Here's why:
- It will be a shorter drive "home" back to Rapid City (if thats where you are staying)
- This is the closest entrance to all of the hiking trails in the park and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center
-It's on the same exit as the the Missile Site Visitor Center so you can make a quick trip there before you head into the park.
Exploring the Visitor Center
The Ben Reifel Visitor Center is worth the visit. It has a NP stamp (obviously) and has neat exhibit about how the badlands were formed over time and continue to erode. It also has a fossil lab with poor grad students who are slowly clearing out fossils with a dentist pick. It is neat to watch them onsite and they will answer your questions about the different types of fossils found in the park.
There are also some nice shaded picnic tables at the visitor center- this is a great place for lunch. They also have a water bottle filler here as well. Random funny story- Max and I were eating lunch at a picnic table here- we were pretty sweaty and gross after hiking all morning and this one lady comes up to us told us that we just looked so cute and wanted me to give her my phone to take a picture of us. We were really confused.
Hiking in the Park
If you plan on hiking in the park there is only one major section that contains the hiking trails. It is closest to the Northeast entrance.
There is a large parking lot for the trailhead of the Door, Window, Notch and Castle Trail.
Things to know before you hike:
- There are bathrooms here but there are no picnic tables or water so plan accordingly
- Wear sunscreen/hats- As you look at these pictures you can see there is not a cloud in the sky and the sun just beats down on you
- Wear close-toed shoes/ hiking boots. Honestly I could do a whole blogpost about the importance of wearing hiking boots on trails. I notice that I have such a better grip with my hiking boots- the investment is worth it. But please for the love of god- dont hike this in sandals. I saw people doing this and I cringed the whole time.
-The Door, Notch and Window trails are pretty short and very popular and crowded. To get more off the beaten path we tried the Castle Trail
View from the end of the Window Trail
If you can only pick one I would recommend the Notch Trail-I thought it was the most interesting trail out of the three little ones. There is one section where you have to climb semi-straight up on a wooden ladder which freaked some people out. Because this was such a bottle neck area and people were taking so long to go up and down it we found another area and were able to traverse it because we had hiking boots on.
Max hiking on the Notch Trail
I thought this was really neat on the Notch trail. I was calling it a "Bird Suburbia" The birds make these little nest homes out of the sand in the bandlands
I love the way the sun reflected off the Bandlands here and created a little rainbow. This is also another bird suburbia on the Notch Trail.
We had planned on doing the the castle trail and the medicine root trail while we were there but ended up only doing the castle trail to the medicine root trail and back because we didn't have enough water. When we went it was 90 degrees outside which made a huge impact as to how far we could hike. To give you an idea we brought 3 liters of water with us and only made it about 3 miles. I really enjoyed the section of the castle trail that we did though. I felt like we were really walking through giant sandcastles created by erosion.
See what I mean by "Sandcastles"? They were pretty neat!
Scenic Overlooks
After you get past the section with all of the trails the rest of the road through Badlands National Park is scenic overlooks. At some of them you can hike out on to them a little bit. We enjoyed just meandering through the park and stoping to look out and walk around at them.
Badlands is HUGE and so vast! This is at Pinnacles Overlook.
Once you get past Pinnacles overlook the road turns to gravel- so just be warned. The overlooks past Pinnacles are pretty but I would recommend viewing them and then turning around after the Sage Creek Basin overlook. Exiting the park at the Pinnacles entrance will give you a more direct route back to Rapid City.
Here are some views of the overlooks
What about Wildlife in the Park?
Honestly if you are looking for a park with a ton of wildlife- this isn't your park. It's called the Badlands for a reason. We did see some. There are a ton of prarie dog towns- I didn't take any pictures because they had kind of lost thier shiny-ness after TRNP. You will also see the occasional Bison. We saw a mountain sheep family while we were in the park- which was the most interesting animal sightings for us.
Also I was extremely surprised to find cactus growing in the park. Apparently cactus can grow in South Dakota
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