Initially, we had planned to be here for 2 full days mostly because one day would be spent at the famous Wall Drug. Instead, we will just be here for one evening and one morning. On our way to Rocky Mountain National Park, we decided to split the drive and move back our campground stay at Spruce Lake RV Park and our location in the Badlands, Sleepy Hollow Campground & RV Park. This place is not the friendliest, they ignored all my calls and emails to change my reservation because of our 1-day delay and they refused to give me an extra day, claiming they were all booked up with 20+ empty slots, maybe it was a COVID restriction.
Anyway, this was going to be the last National Park of the trip. So, let’s look at a few notes of Badlands National Park:
- Entrance fee $30
- Established in 1939
- 242,756 acres in size
- The Rocks were deposited as early as 75 million years ago and have been eroding for 500,000 years
- Best known for the eroded buttes and pinnacles
Day 1 – Sunset at Badlands 06.21.2020
My brother and I entered at the pinnacles entrance and didn’t fully complete the badlands loop road. We made it down to Castle trail to get one small hike in. There were a lot of signs warning about rattlesnakes, we didn’t see any. On the way back we stopped at every overlook grabbing photos as the sun was setting and then hustled back to the Pinnacles overlook to get a good sunset photo. We also passed some bighorn sheep on the loop.
Day 2 – Complete the Loop & Wall Drug 06.22.2020
This day was focused on completing the loop with my grandmother in the car so she could get out and see all the overlooks, we did no hiking and then headed for Wall Drug. We headed to the park at 08:00 and completed the loop in two hours. Ultimately the only big overlook we had missed the evening before was the Big Badlands Overlook. So I guess you can easily do this park in two hours by vehicle if you don’t plan to do any hikes and at the time fossil exhibit trail was under construction and closed, which was the only trail I wanted to hike.
Very short post here, off to Wall Drug and then Sioux City before heading back home. Here are the fun results from completing the trip:
- Total Trip 19 Days
- National Parks 10
- Total Driven 7200+km (4,500+mi)
- Hours Driven 72+ hours
- Total Biked 37.3km (23.3mi)
- Total Hiked 41.6km (26mi)
- Different Types of Wildlife 6
Thanks for reading and liking my post, coming up my time in Costa Rica, and then all the trips from my year abroad in New Zealand.
Cheers!