Sept. 7 – 9 SD Badlands
Taking Rte 44 straight (very straight) out of Rapid City you very quickly get to the “Badlands Loop” road. This is a gravel road, in pretty good condition, but corrugated in spots. However, after a tantalizing glimpse of eroded hills, it goes for at least 26 miles through flat prairie. It is not until the last 5 miles or so before it meets the paved road (240) that things begin to get interesting.
First the scenery becomes very interesting, with colorful, jagged spires, ridges and gullies. And then there is the wildlife.
There are a lot of bighorn sheep. Although the park apparently has only about 150 bighorns, we saw at least 40. There were small herds amid the erosion features. But there were also a considerable number of animals, including rams with impressive horns, grazing by the roadside (and creating the usual animal viewing traffic jams). There were also a few bison and several prairie dog towns.
Speaking of prairie dogs, the attempt to eradicate them from the plains also almost eradicated one of their predators, the black-footed ferret. They were declared extinct in 1979. However, in 1981 a few individuals were found on a Wyoming ranch. They were introduced into the Badlands National Park and a several other sites with protected prairie dog populations, where they are hanging on despite threats from canine distemper and the plague. We saw prairie dogs but no ferrets.
I enjoyed the many colors of the soil and the interesting erosion formations.
We stopped to try the Saddle Pass Trail. We climbed to the top of the first ridge. However, the soil here is very fine and the trail is covered by a mix of dust and fine gravelly particles. The effect is almost as slippery as climbing on hard packed snow – you can make progress, but each step forward leads to sliding half a step back. Up was not too bad; down was treacherous. We carefully made the descent back to the van, dodging a few raindrops as we went.
We then went to the Door/Window parking lot, which is the trailhead for 3 trails, Door, Window and Notch. We are not sure which specific features give the trails their names, but the parking lot features a ridge with several window-like features. Looking through the windows gives quite impressive (spectacular again?) views over the erosion features.
After a hard day of sightseeing in the Badlands, we drove through iconic SD farmlands to arrive at the Kadoka KOA. It is hay harvesting season, and with the late afternoon sun, the fields with their huge rolls of hay looked golden.
We decided to spend two nights at Kadoka KOA to regenerate. The campground is actually fairly far from Kadoka — pretty much the middle of nowhere — and is on a lake. However, there is no lake access. According to the owner, the Army Corps of Engineers have declared the lake dead due to selenium and nitrate run-off. There is a thick riparian area of bulrushes and other reeds. The owners were quite friendly and explained to me some of the complexities of running the campground, which they had purchased only 2 years earlier. Among other ideas, they would like to rehabilitate the lake. In any case, it was a fine place to rest up. Among other things, they had a cafe, serving specialty coffees and pizza. We took advantage of the latter – delivered hot to the campsite.
They also sold stick-on maps of the USA — a must for the serious RV traveler. We can now boast of our RV travels with the best of them. (We think it unlikely, though, that anyone actually takes their RV to Hawaii.)