Crossing the Badlands

Custer to Badlands National Park - 250 miles traveled.

Today we headed out to Badlands National Park. We packed a picnic lunch and began our drive east.  It was a 2 ½ hour drive but it was well worth the trip.

On our way into Badlands, grasslands were all we could see and then strange cliffs and canyons came into view.  Our first stop was at Pinnacles.  As we made our way down to the overlook Blake noticed the sign, “Beware of rattlesnakes.”  We all laughed and said, “Hope we saw our last rattlesnake of the trip in Utah!” 

In order to get to the Visitor’s Center we had about a 26 mile drive.  The road took us around the rim, down into the canyon walls, and back out again.  The colors in the canyon were spectacular.  In one spot where we stopped, Yellow Mounds, the rock was all different shades against the green and yellow grass.  Frank Lloyd Wright once wrote, “I’ve been about the world a lot, and pretty much over our own country, but I was totally unprepared for that revelation called the Dakota Bad Lands … what I saw gave me an indescribable sense of mysterious elsewhere – a distant architecture, ethereal … an endless supernatural world more spiritual than earth but created out of it.”  I said, as we stood on top of a hill we climbed, “This makes The Painted Desert look like nothing.”

We picked a spot to pull over for lunch.  It turns out it is right where Big Foot and his tribe passed into the Badlands in December of 1890 to escape the U.S. 7^th Calvary.  They were on their way to Wounded Knee where the largest massacre of Native Americans took place December 29, 1890.

After enjoying lunch and taking pictures, we headed towards the Visitor’s Center but before we left I heard a guy say as he drove past our car, “Hey, there are some Mississippi State people.” (I have a Mississippi State Mom sticker on my car).  As I was driving out, I slowed down the car to see a guy with Mississippi State stickers on the back.  He was standing next to the car with a Bulldog tattoo on his calf.  I proceeded to embarrass both Al and Blake as I rolled down he window and said, “Hail State!”  He returned quickly with a “Hail State” with a smile!

A quick visit to the Visitor’s Center to watch a movie and check out the hiking trails.  The ranger at the desk recommended Notch Trail – a 2.4 mile round trip trail with a ladder to climb up to the top of the cliff. After climbing the ladder the trail leads to several “windows” to the grasslands and canyons.  Since we didn’t have a whole lot of time to hike, we decided to take on Notch Trail.

The weather was perfect today.  Temperatures were in the 80’s with a nice breeze.  The hike was nice.  It gave us an opportunity to walk and climb through the canyons and look out of several “windows.”  The climb up the ladder was not too bad but coming down was kind of scary.  I took it real slow and didn’t look at anything but the rungs and the cable as I descended down the wall.

After our hike we headed back 2 ½ hours to Custer.  We had to get everything packed up and ready to leave – our alarms were set for 3:15 AM – we have a very long day tomorrow – Custer to Omaha!