South Dakota - The Badlands |
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The Badlands was one of the places we definitely wanted to explore. We decided to take the long, scenic route through the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The two lane blacktop highway turned to a dirt road through the Reservation. Only a few cars passed by and the drivers would wave like they hadn't seen anyone for awhile. We stopped several times to take photographs of the potentially hostile and barren landscape.
We continued driving on to the 40 mile paved Badlands Loop. About one tenth of the Badlands, the most amazing parts, were declared a national park in the Seventies. The Badlands are a work of art still in progress. Water and wind continue to sculpt the pliant soil into sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires that resemble medieval castles made of sand. A geologic story is written in the rocks of Badlands National Park, every bit as fascinating and colorful as their outward appearance.
Hikers can explore the Byzantine labyrinth of shifting sands and experience the vast expanse of azure sky and forbidding land that greeted -- and ultimately defeated -- the earliest settlers. Each panorama offers a glimpse into millions of years of geologic history, paleontology, and the inevitability of a changing earth.
More than 35 million years ago this area of southwest South Dakota was a saltwater sea; later it became a marsh, into which sank the remains of such prehistoric mammals as sabre-toothed tigers, giant pigs and three-toed horses, to be covered with white volcanic ash. Drying as it evolved, the terrain became unable to support the deep rooted shrubs or trees that might have preserved it, and over the last few million years erosion has slowly eaten away layers of sand, silt, ash, mud and gravel, to reveal rippling gradations of earth tones and pastel colors. The crumbly earth is carved into all manners of shapes: pinnacles, precipices, pyramids, knobs, cones, ridges, gorges, lunar sandcastles and cathedrals.
The park covers 244,000 acres of southwest South Dakota. There are seven short trails that sufficiently penetrate the diverse terrain found within the Badlands. The longest trail in the park is the 5 mile Castle Trail. Primarily level, this path parallels some precipitous formations. We decided to hike the Castle Trail which is not heavily used and offers a chance for solitude and wildlife viewing. It was a very strange place to hike through and we were quite happy that we had the chance to do some exploring in the Badlands.
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