The Wonderful “Good-ness” Of Badlands National Park

At the beginning of our family’s National Parks road trip this year, I had only a vague notion of the Badlands as a place. I had no idea that when they called them the Badlands, they meant “bad” in the best sense of the word! At this point, I’ve written nearly 2000 words on the Badlands National Park, and it feels like only the barest dusting of the incredible array of amazing things to do in the park. In the space of only a couple of days, Badlands National Park went from a place I knew nothing about to one of my all-time favorite adventures ever.

What is Badlands National Park?

The Badlands National Park is a whole lot of things, but “bad” isn’t really one of them. On the contrary, the Badlands is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. That’s in large part to the wide variety of sedimentary rock formations and buttes. It almost doesn’t matter which overlook you visit, because there will almost certainly be an amazing view.

Add to that the ability to find fossils of ancient mammals, view some of the clearest night skies I’ve ever seen, or track down a variety of interesting animals, and it’s easy to see why the Badlands are so great.

Where is Badlands National Park?

Why Should I Visit Badlands National Park?

America’s National Parks are among the best places in the States to get out into nature. As such, I personally feel that if you get the opportunity to visit any National Park, you should definitely do that.

However, Badlands National Park, in particular, has a lot going for it that makes it a must-visit park above and beyond a lot of the parks and monuments that I’ve visited. I’ve already mentioned that the park has a number of fabulous scenic overlooks where you can view its many rock formations and buttes, but it bears mentioning again.

Badlands has stunning landscapes

• Absolutely stunning vistas
• Striations of color
• A variety of hiking trails are available

Driving: Badlands Loop Road (Highway 240)

If you only have time for one activity during your visit, I suggest taking the time to drive the Badlands Loop Road between the Sage Creek Basin Overlook and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center.

The landscapes along this route are indescribably beautiful. In fact, I can easily say they are among the most amazing landscapes that I’ve ever seen. Photos absolutely do not do them justice. Each of the scenic overlooks has something to offer, but my personal favorites were the Pinnacles and Yellow Mounds overlooks.

The Pinnacles overlook gives you a miles-wide view of the grandness on display in Badlands. Bands of white and red stone combine in a way that I find truly beautiful. It’s absolutely spectacular, and I spent a good long while admiring it.

You can’t see as much of the landscape from the Yellow Mounds outlook, but they have a unique beauty of their own. The hills there are banded with a bright yellow color that comes from the time when the area was a shallow sea. When the water receded, the plants died off and decayed, causing a distinctive yellow color.

Hiking: While you can see some pretty amazing sights along the Badlands Loop Road, there are also a ton of great hiking opportunities available, too!

On our trip, we didn’t end up spending a lot of time hiking, but we did make some time for one of the Fossil Exhibit Trail, which is a short quarter-mile loop trail with educational signs focused on the prehistoric life found in this area and the fossils they left behind.

One of the neat things about Badlands National Park is that families are encouraged to hike out away from the marked trails and explore on their own. That’s really unusual for a National Park, but it leads to some awesome exploration opportunities for those who take advantage.

Other popular trails include the Notch Trail (1.3 miles), the Door Trail (.8 miles), the Window Trail (.2 miles), and the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail (.5 miles). Or, if your family is up for a challenge, check out the park’s longest trail, Castle Trail, at 10 miles long!

Badlands has incredible animal life

• Bison
• Prairie Dogs
• Antelope
• Everything else (Bighorn sheep, mountain goats, burrowing owls, lots more!)

One of my favorite things to do no matter we are is to check out all the amazing creatures that call that place home. Badlands National Park is no different. For a place that looks pretty desolate at first glance, the Badlands actually have a ton of amazing animals that call it home.

One of the easiest to spot is the American bison, which roams the prairie in large herds. We ran into a herd almost immediately when we entered the park, and had to wait for them to decide to move off the road before we could pass. The herd was huge, so it took a while. It turns out, bison herds in the Badlands are doing so well that some of them are being transplanted to other areas of the States that need help growing their own local populations.

Badlands National Park is also home to one of the world’s most critically endangered species, the black-footed ferret. It is so endangered that it was once thought to be extinct. Even now, the exact locations of known family groups are kept secret to prevent them from getting disturbed by tourists. Around 120 black-footed ferrets are currently living in the badlands, which is roughly two-thirds of their total population across the States.

Interestingly, both the black-footed ferret and the bison rely on one of the prairie’s other residents to survive: the prairie dog! Prairie dogs are a keystone species for American prairie lands, providing food for black-footed ferrets, burrowing owls and coyotes, and also helping to keep prairie grasses healthy for the larger herbivores like bison and pronghorn antelopes. Before this trip, I had no idea how important prairie dogs are to the health of their ecosystem

During our trip, we had an amazing opportunity to learn all about this important little critter firsthand. A team from the USGS was doing a survey of the local prairie dog populations, checking them for fleas that could carry the sylvatic plague. Part of the survey included capturing the prairie dogs to get basic information like weight and length, but it was also a convenient way to let our kids pet them!

Do not try to pet wild prairie dogs! The prairie dogs my kids got to pet were sedated. Non-sedated prairie dogs are wild animals, and they will bite.

Other amazing animal sightings included a burrowing owl, bighorn sheep, and my first ever pronghorn antelope spotting!

Badlands National Park has great educational opportunities!

• Museum
• Fossil Lab
• Jr. Ranger Program

There are two ranger stations inside Badlands National Park, but the station we visited is the Ben Reifel Ranger Station, located on the Badlands Loop Road. 

Ben Reifel Ranger Station has everything you would expect from a ranger station. Park rangers are there to answer any questions you might have or to give you guidance on the best things to do in the park. But there’s also an entire museum to explore!

The museum has some really excellent displays on the animals you can find in the park, including prairie dogs, and the black-footed ferret. But the displays that caught my family’s attention were the ones dealing with the animals that you won’t see.

Apart from its amazing landscapes, Badlands National Park is known as one of the best places in the States for finding mammalian fossils. Any fossils found in the park, whether by the paleontologists who regularly work there or by visitors, get brought to a fossil lab at the Ben Reifel Ranger Station where they get cleaned and displayed, or shipped out to other museums for study. While we were there, there were some great fossils of prehistoric pigs, rhinos, and early dogs that were all found in the park. We also got to watch as one of the paleontologists cleaned up one of the recent finds!

Remember! If you find a fossil on the ground during your visit to the park, don’t move it! Instead, take a picture of it, and get its GPS coordinates, if possible. Then let the park rangers know what you’ve found. Most of the fossils on display were found by visitors to the park!

While you’re there, also be sure to get your stamps for your National Parks Passport collection, if you’re doing that, and get the Junior Rangers workbook for the kids. We’ve visited a ton of National Parks and Monuments at this point, and the Junior Ranger program has been one of our kids’ favorite parts at almost every stop, so it is well worth checking out.

Camping at Badlands National Park

• Camping right among the animals
• Starry, starry night
• Surprisingly cold

While you can definitely explore most of what the Badlands has to offer during the day, at least one of my favorite activities there happened as a direct result of our decision to spend the night inside the park.

Note: While this particular campground does have both picnic tables and a pit latrine, neither electricity nor drinking water is available. I was also unable to get a cell signal, so be prepared to be “off-grid” while you’re out there.

We decided to camp out at the Sage Creek Wilderness Area Campground, which is a first-come, first-serve style campground within the park. The campground is right in the middle of a prairie dog town, which is the main reason we chose to camp there. Throughout the day, prairie dogs yipped at us curiously, and we loved watching them forage for food. But the real show didn’t start until nightfall.

Seeing stars?

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Badlands National Park is far enough away from any major cities that the stars came out in full force. Other than stargazing in the Atacama desert, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a night sky so filled with stars!

I, unfortunately, didn’t know about the park’s Night Sky Viewing program, or we definitely would have made time for it, but I did get some great pictures using my phone’s astrophotography setting. After taking a few photos, I grabbed a chair and spent most of an hour just staring up at the sky. It was a treat, for sure.

In the morning, we were greeted by a bachelor herd of bison wandering through the camp, and got an up-close view of them as they wandered by our picnic table!

That was also the morning where we bumped into the USGS researchers and got to watch them work with the prairie dogs. All of that, just because we decided to camp out.

If you’re interested in checking out the campsite for yourself, be sure to get there early! Since they don’t take reservations, if you try to claim a spot later in the day, you may be out of luck. Also, be sure to bring everything you need to make a great campground dinner, since the nearest restaurants are in Wall, South Dakota, about half an hour away. 

Whether you’re coming for the amazing landscapes, the spectacular skies, or any of the local animals, living or extinct, Badlands National Park has what you’re looking for. It may not be talked about as much as popular parks like Yellowstone or Grand Canyon, but with a wide array of activities, it is easily one of the best parks that I’ve visited.