Hello! I recently went on a week-long road trip with my dad through South Dakota. I have separated it into two blogs, this first is about the Badlands and the second about the Black Hills (you can find it here).
Hope you enjoy!
Day 1 – Setting up Camp
We set out on the 11 hour journey from Minnesota to the Badlands. Most of it is completely flat prairie so it was a pretty uneventful trip with a lot of windmills and farms. Then suddenly out of nowhere we saw yellow rocks in the distance that stood out like sore thumbs in the otherwise abysmally flat landscape.
Even as we reached the entrance to the Badlands, we still seemed infinitely far away from the rocks.
Once we got in, the sun was already setting so we put up camp and cooked dinner. The campsites were very close together with no shelter between campsites and no fire pits. This does make sense because it is so dry not many trees can grow and any fire could spread rapidly, but it was disappointing because it is different from any other campsite I have been to before. This meant no s’more, no hammocks, and, as we later found out, extreme heat.
Day 2 – Hiking the Badlands
The next morning at the crack of dawn we went for an early morning drive around the Badlands. The National park is massive so it is easiest to drive the loop they have winding through the Badlands and stopping to take pictures and go hiking.
Also after reading travel blogs about the Badlands, the best piece of advice was to take pictures when the sun was first rising. This is when there are still a lot of shadows that really draws out the beautiful natural landscape. You can also take pictures at sunset, but there are far less people in the morning you have to worry about getting in your pictures or being loud and obnoxious.
After getting lots of good pictures in, we headed back to the campsite for some breakfast before our hike. Another point to note that the Badlands only has a handful of good hiking trails that all have little to no shelter and are not terribly long.
By the time we got on the trail, it was already getting quite hot even though we started the hike at 9 AM, and we quickly were dripping with sweat.
Much of the hike was through the prairie and not in the rocks of the Badlands. The only time we were on the rocks was on the way to or from the hiking trail, which was the most grueling bit because the path was not well marked and it was climbing shear cliffs.
We did all the hikes that morning and although we were very tired, the views made the hike.
After the hike, it was time to eat lunch. By this point, it was so hot out even the shelter provided on the campsite wasn’t helping enough. Eventually, we decided to go to the gift shop and restaurant of the national park to enjoy some air conditioning and play cards (I also got a chocolate shake).
Once the sun had set, it cooled down enough for us to venture back to our campsite. Where there had been no wind during the day, the wind picked up incredibly every night. And with the wind came huge thunderstorms and both nights we were camped out our tent nearly collapsed from the wind and rain. Other campers, who had not securely fastened their tents to the ground, had their tents blowing away!
Day 3 – Packing up and Final Farewells
We checked out after spending 2 nights in the Badlands and I would say 2 nights is 2 nights too many. The views are incredible and definitely worth seeing, but you can see them all in a drive around the loop and maybe stopping for a hike. The campsites, understandably being in the middle of a prairie, have no shelter to the elements which meant we were dealing with either extreme heat or buffeted by the strongest wind and thunderstorms I have ever experienced.
If I were to plan this trip again, I would do a day trip through the Badlands before arriving at a campsite in the Black Hills for the evening.
In the morning, we did another beautiful drive through the Badlands and got to take in the last bit of nature at its finest.
And now we are off to the Black Hills!
Until next time!
