Today we are driving through beautiful Badlands National Park. It’s the 2nd day of our road trip driving home from Montana with Gigi and our daughter. To read more about our road trip, check out our separate post: The Long Way Home from Montana to Florida. After staying in Rapid City, South Dakota last night, we will be driving right by the exit to Badlands National Park. So, we’re going to make a stop and drive through beautiful Badlands National Park!
Planning Badlands National Park
Badlands National Park is named for its colorful geological layers of rocks throughout the park. These layers correspond to different moments in geological time starting with the oldest layer at the bottom. And as you guessed it, the youngest layers sit on top of the formations. To read more about this park check out: Badlands National Park (nps.gov).
Only having a few hours, the Badlands Loop Road is a great way to see the highlights of the park. And since we’ll be driving I-90, this is perfect as we can exit and return to I-90 the same direction we’re heading. The total diversion is about 38 miles on scenic highway 240 and just over an hour of driving. But we’ll plan to make various stops along the way at overlooks, their visitor center and more.
Without having time to really plan this stop, we are relying on GuideAlong. And they have a tour package that includes: Black Hills, Rushmore and Badlands Audio Tour | GuideAlong. If you haven’t checked out GuideAlong yet (formerly GyPSy Guide), check them out. They provide an audio tour based on your GPS location and it’s like having a tour guide in the car with you. And it’s perfect for a scenic drive like this providing insight, history and more to your trip.
Entering Badlands National Park
We get to Badlands entrance sign at the Pinnacles entrance around 10:30AM after exiting off I-90 at Wall, SD. It takes a few minutes to get through the entrance where we see some people on the side of the road. They appear to be looking at some wildlife near holes in the ground. Not sure what they’re looking at we make it up to the window where we show our annual pass so we don’t have to pay the $30 entrance fee per vehicle.
Once in we plan to drive the Badlands Loop Road (Highway 240) through the park, but GuideAlong is already redirecting us. It tells us about prairie dogs which is what we thought those people were looking at. And the best place to see them is off a side road called Sage Creek Rim Road at Robert’s Prairie Dog Town.
Sage Creek Rim Road and Robert’s Prairie Dog Town
We make the 1st right turn onto the dirt/gravel road traveling through the Sage Creek Wilderness Area. This wildness area has 3 overlooks and we see some pronghorn antelope out in the plains. But we don’t stop because we want to go straight to Robert’s Prairie Dog Town. And it’s exactly what it sounds like – a colony of prairie dogs. So we drive about 5 miles until we get to its parking area.
We park to get out and get closer to the prairie dogs. Though they are cute, they apparently can carry the plague! So, it startled us when the little guy pictured above popped out so close to us. But this is a really cool experience to see them popping out of their holes and looking around. There are holes everywhere and you can hear them making squeaking noises talking to each other.
We are able to get pretty close to them, but at a safe distance. But we see a family getting closer and see their kids are feeding them. They ask if we would like to feed them too, but we just say no thank you. The plague people! So, after about 10 minutes here, we turn around to go back the way we came.
On the way back we pull over to get a better look at the pronghorn we spotted earlier. We also make stops at 2 overlooks on the way. The Badlands Wilderness Overlook provides expansive views of eroding formations into prairieland. And the Hay Butte Overlook provides views of its namesake grass-capped butte of Badlands formations. Both provide a nice introduction to the Badlands and this side-trip was worth the extra hour.
Badlands Loop Road
Back on the main road, we stop at the first pull-off at Pinnacles Overlook. This spot is the highest elevation in the North Unit of the park. It’s a nice stop with restrooms in the parking lot, but has steps to walk down to the edge. There’s also a sign here saying Beware Rattlesnakes! So, we stay on the trail.
But back on the road, this is an enjoyable drive through different geological formations around every turn. One area we find interesting are the colorful Yellow Mounds.
At its namesake overlook you can get out and hike which looks appealing but we don’t have the time. Plus it is hot today. So, we continue on the road to more overlooks including the Conata Basin Overlook. This overlook gives a great view of the Yellow Mounds from a distance.
Another great stop is aptly named Panorama Point which offers extensive views of the Badlands landscape. This is a great spot just to take it all in. Not far past it is the 1/4 mile Fossil Exhibit Trail. This boardwalk loop has interpretive signs where replicas of fossils found in the park are displayed. I do this one quickly by myself then back to the car. We continue to do the loop fairly fast skipping some stops since we still have a long way home. And we get to the visitor center at 1:00PM.
Ben Reifel Visitor Center
The Ben Reifel Visitor Center is the park headquarters and main facility in the North Unit of the park. You can stop here to talk with rangers, explore museum exhibits or use the restroom facilities. Also, it has the park’s gift shop, so we head in to get passport stamps and shop for souvenirs. They have a great collection of our favorites, fridge magnets and stuffed animals including a prairie dog.
In addition to exhibits, they also have a Fossil Preparation Lab. I find this interesting as there have been many fossils found in the park including many by visitors. If you catch it right, you might actually see paleontologists at work here.
You can spend some time here going through all the exhibits and watching a paleontologist work. But after about 30 minutes in the visitor center, we get back on the road toward the exit. But we make a few more stops first.
More Stops before the the Badlands Exit
Our 1st stop after the visitor center is another quick loop trail called Cliff Shelf Nature Trail. This 0.5 mile trail is different than others as it has rich vegetation overlooking the White River Valley below. We all get out here, but there are some stairs and approximately 200 feet in elevation. So Gigi and Becky hang back while my daughter and I walk the trail.
We make another quick stop at the next parking lot for more trails including the Wall and Door trails. These trails offer views beyond the Badlands wall. They look really cool, but short on time we continue with one more stop.
Before we make our last stop in Badlands National Park, our car shows 100 degrees. We knew it was hot, and this is definitely why we didn’t see more wildlife than we did. But at the least the wind helped and Big Badlands Overlook is a nice end to our visit today. Here we can see extensive views of more red-striped rock formations. And we finally make it to the exit at almost 2:00PM.
Summary of our Badlands National Park stop
We spent 3.5 hours rushing through Badlands National Park and could have definitely spent more time here. It was actually more time than we expected, but we did take the side trip to Robert’s Prairie Dog Town. However, that was definitely a highlight for us and worth the extra time to see the prairie dogs up-close. But just driving through Badlands Loop Road through the park provides beautiful scenery unlike the other parks we’ve visited. And though we could’ve spent more time at overlooks or hiked more trails, it was perfect for us today. And the visitor center with the Fossil Preparation Lab was also a cool stop. But we hope to be back one day to spend more time in beautiful Badlands National Park!