Badlands National Park

On Wednesday, we drove from Keystone through Buffalo Gap National Grasslands into Badlands National Park. We were hoping to find a First-Come, First-Served site in the Cedar Pass Campground. When we arrived, the young lady at the entrance station recommended that we go to the Group camping area, as there were no groups with reservations, and she figured we would "fit" there (Miss Doozie + us = a group?). There was one other camper there (well, they weren't there when we initially got there, but arrived soon), and for whatever reason, both of us had been given site "4" of the group sites. We worked it out... and by the end of the day, a few other folks had been assigned to the group area also.

We drove over to the Ben Reifel Visitor Center in the afternoon...

Rock formations in the Badlands in front of the Visitor Center

An interesting example of how erosion impacts the land in the Badlands.

 As we were driving in through the Grasslands, we saw interesting land formations - looking like columns or mesas that were topped with grass:

Outside...

Explanation at the Visitor Center:

Model in the visitor center

Programs that we could take advantage of in the amphitheater in the campground...

The topic for Wednesday evening.

As the sun was setting, the mountains around where we were camping were beautifully painted...

Sunset toward the west.

We went to hear the ranger talk - a ranger from the National Forest Service (Grasslands are part of the National Forest Service) came to talk to us about the Black-footed Ferret. In 1979, it was feared that the Black-footed Ferret was extinct, but then a colony was found in Wyoming in 1981, and they have been successfully bred in captivity and re-introduced into the Badlands. The Black-footed Ferret lives in abandoned Prairie Dog dens (tunnels) and its primary food is the Prairie Dog. If I remember correctly, the ranger told us that a colony of 120 Black-footed Ferrets needs approximately 10,000 acres of Prairie Dogs to support them. Both the Prairie Dogs and Black-footed Ferrets carry fleas that carry the Bubonic Plague, and both of them are subject to succumbing to the Bubonic Plague - death of the Prairie Dogs eventually means death to the Black-footed Ferret as well. (more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-footed_ferret) They are taking steps to try to control fleas in the Prairie Dog and Black-footed Ferret populations. The ranger gave an animated and interesting talk - one of the benefits of staying in the National Park.

After the ranger talk, two National Park employees (I think, I can't remember that one of them was introduced at all, but the one who introduced himself and the fellow from the Forest Service at the beginning of the evening worked for the Park Service in Badlands National Park), helped us with seeing many of the beauties of the night sky. We had about an hour before the moon rose which reduced the visibility of the stars significantly, but it was very interesting and enjoyable.

We decided that we wanted to go on a couple of hikes, but knew that the temperature by mid-day would be too hot, so we let Tabitha get us up on Thursday morning (she always gets me up to feed her, but usually I go back to bed, at least to read) - so we could get up and going early.

There were two relatively short trails from the same parking area... we first took the Window Trail.

After a short walk...

We came to an overlook of a canyon...

Interesting perspective through a notch or window.

 

Another visitor to the park capturing a picture of a bunny next to the boardwalk.

Then we walked down the parking lot to the trailhead of the Door Trail

The information told us that there was a boardwalk trail, but then also a trail across the Badlands desert.

The rock formations / mountains across from the parking lot.

On the Door Trail

The end of the boardwalk on the Door Trail

 We decided to take the trail that led through the Badlands desert off the boardwalk...

To provide perspective - there are two people on the boardwalk on the right side of the picture - one is wearing an orange/pink top. The formations weren't huge, but they were other-worldly looking!

Looking down at one of the rocks to see its interesting surface.

The way that the rocks have the same color layers horizontally across many different formations was so beautiful.

 

Dwayne wanted to go explore in those caves... I told him I would wait while he went!

Since we had left when Tabitha got me up, I did my Bible reading and study sitting on a rock in the midst of the Badlands!

Dwayne was enjoying taking lots of pictures.

We had thought we might stay two nights in the Badlands, but, the weather was predicted to get quite warm on Thursday, and since we didn't have hookups, that meant we would need to run the generator to keep the rig cool enough. We felt we had seen what we wanted to see... and were planning to drive the Jeep into Wall for the day... so instead, we hooked up the Jeep and drove Miss Doozie to Wall, with the plan to continue on our way east after visiting Wall.