Located in southwestern South Dakota, Badlands National Park consists of 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. The Badlands Wilderness Area covers 64,000 acres and is the site of the reintroduction of the black footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America. The Stronghold Unit is co-managed with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and includes sites of 189 Ghost Dances. Badlands National Park was created to preserve the scenic and scientific value of a portion of the White River Badlands for the benefit and enjoyment of the people. Natural processes have uncovered and displayed a concentrated collection of rutted ravines, serrated towers, pinnacles and precipitous gulches. The park contains world renowned paleontological features and geological formations of the Eocene and Oligocene epochs with recognized scientific and educational value. This spectacular setting contains a fine example of a vast mixed grass prairie ecosystem. The landscape encompasses an 11,000 year legacy of human use and occupancy.
Established as Badlands National Monument in 1939, the area was redesignated as a “National Park” in 1978. Over 11,000 years of human history pale to the ages old paleontological resources. Badlands National Park contains the world’s richest Oligocene epoch fossil beds, dating 23 to 35 million years old. Scientists can study the evolution of mammal species such as the horse, sheep, rhinoceros and pig in the Badlands formations.
History & Culture
For eleven thousand years, American Indians have used this area for their hunting grounds. Their descendants live today in North Dakota as a part of the Three Affiliated Tribes. Archaeological records combined with oral traditions indicate that these people camped in secluded valleys where fresh water and game were available year round. Eroding out of the stream banks today are the rocks and charcoal of their campfires, as well as the arrowheads and tools they used. From the top of the Badlands Wall, they could scan the area for enemies and wandering herds. If hunting was good, they might hang on into winter, before retracing their way to their villages along the Missouri River. By one hundred and fifty years ago, the Great Sioux Nation consisting of seven bands including the Oglala Lakota, had displaced the other tribes from the northern prairie. The next great change came toward the end of the 19th century as homesteaders moved into South Dakota. The U. S. government stripped American Indians of much of their territory and forced them to live on reservations. The climax of the struggle came in late December, 1890, in a battle at Wounded Knee Creek. The massacre at Wounded Knee was the last major clash between American Indians and the U. S. military.
The history of the White River Badlands as a significant paleontological resource goes back to the traditional Native American knowledge of the area. The Lakota found large fossilized bones, fossilized seashells and turtle shells. They correctly assumed that the area had once been under water and that the bones belonged to creatures which no longer existed. Paleontological interest in this area began in the 1840’s. Trappers and traders regularly traveled the 300 miles from Fort Pierre to Fort Laramie along a path which skirted the edge of what is now Badlands National Park. Fossils were occasionally collected.
The White River Badlands have developed an international reputation as a fossil rich area. They contain the richest deposits of Oligocene mammals known, providing a brief glimpse of life in this area 33 million years ago. Comparisons between the fossils here and fossils of similar age around the world have helped paint a picture of life on earth millions of years ago.
Aspects of American homesteading began before the end of the Civil War; however, homesteading didn’t really impact the Badlands until well into the 20th century. Many hopeful farmers traveled to South Dakota from Europe or the East Coast. Cattle grazed and crops like winter wheat and hay were cut annually. However, the Great Dust Bowl events of the 1930’s combined with waves of grasshoppers proved too much for most of the hardy souls of the Badlands. Houses were soon abandoned but those who remained are still here today ranching and raising wheat. The roots of these people of the prairie run deep. Like the grasses they depend on, they are tenacious, surviving blizzards, droughts and floods to remain firmly grounded in a place as unforgiving as it is beautiful.
The Stronghold District of Badlands National Park offers more than scenic badlands with spectacular views. This remote area plays a more role in U. S. history: World War II and the Badlands gunnery range. The U. S. Air Force (USAF) took possession of 341,726 acres on the Pine Ridge Reservation, home of the Oglala Sioux people, for a gunnery range. Included in this range was 337 acres from then Badlands National Monument. This land was used extensively from 1942 through 1945 as air-to-air and air-to-ground gunnery ranges. Precision and demolition bombing exercises were also quite common.
Today, the ground is littered discarded bullet shells and unexploded ordnance. For safety, 125 families were relocated from their farms and ranches in the 1940’s. Those that remained nearby recall times when they had to dive under tractors while out cutting hay to avoid shells dropped by planes miles outside of the boundary. In the town of Interior, both a church and the building housing the current post office received six inch shells through the roof. Pilots in practice, operating out of Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, found it a challenge to determine the exact boundaries of the range. Fortunately, there were no civilian casualties. However, at least a dozen members of flight crews lost their lives in plane crashes.
Just as it was difficult for pilots to determine the gunnery range from the air, it is challenging to find your way when exploring the Stronghold District. There are few roads. The natural conditions of rain and snow add to the complexity. Throughout the Stronghold District are spent 50 caliber machine gun shells and 20mm cannon shells. Larger explosive shells are occasionally found eroding out of the Badlands buttes. If you find any shells, do not touch them. Note where you are.
If you have a map, note on the map where you are. As soon as possible, report this to the White River Ranger Station at 605-455-2878. The National Park Service, working with the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the U. S. Air Force and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers are undertaking a clean up effort for this sacred ground. Do your part. Leave all objects you find in the park in place. Report anything unusual you find to a park ranger.
Nature & Science
The bizarre landforms called badlands are, despite the uninviting name, a masterpiece of water and wind sculpture. They are near deserts of a special kind, where rain is infrequent, the bare rocks are poorly consolidated and relatively uniform in their resistance to erosion and runoff water washes away large amounts of sediment. On average, the White River Badlands of South Dakota erode one inch per year. They are formidable redoubts of stark beauty where the delicate balance between creation and decay, that distinguishes so much geologic art, is manifested in improbable landscapes appearing like near moonscapes whose individual elements seem to defy gravity. Erosion is so rapid that the landforms can change perceptibly overnight as a result of a single thunderstorm. At Badlands National Park, weird shapes are etched into a plateau of soft sediments and volcanic ash, revealing colorful bands of flat-lying strata. The stratification adds immeasurably to the beauty of each scene, binding together all of its diverse parts. Viewed horizontally, individual beds are traceable from pinnacle to pinnacle, mound to mound, ridge to ridge, across the intervening ravines. Viewed from above, the bands curve in and out of the valley like contour lines on a topographic map.
A geologic story is written in the rocks of Badlands National Park, every bit as fascinating and colorful as their outward appearance. It is an account of 75 million years of accumulation with intermittent periods of erosion that began when the Rocky Mountains reared up in the West and spread sediments over vast expanses of the plains. The sand, silt and clay, mixed and interbedded with volcanic ash, stacked up, layer upon flat-lying layer, until the pile was thousands of feet deep. In a final phase of volcanism as the uplift ended, white ash rained from the sky to frost the cake, completing the building stage.
During the Oligocene epoch 40 to 25 million years ago, the region that is now the White River Badlands supported many kinds of animals. The land was then lush, well watered and much warmer than now. The animals, mostly mammals, roamed the floodplains; many died in floods and were quickly buried in river sediments. Conditions for preservation were excellent; the Oligocene beds are one of the world’s richest vertebrate fossil sites, though they represent only a short segment of Earth history.
Broad regional uplift raised the land about 5 million years ago and initiated the erosion that created the Badlands. The White River, which now flows west to east five or ten miles south of the park, eroded a scarp, the beginning of what is now called the Wall. Numerous small streams and rills furrowed the scarp face and eventually intersected to create the Badlands topography. Each rainstorm over the next 5 million years chewed away at the Wall, making its crest recede northward away from the river as its base followed suit. This is an old story in the arid and semi-arid regions of the West. It always happens in rocks that are relatively non-resistant erosion and it always starts with a scarp.
At Badlands National Park, the White River produced the scarp. The physical character of the Badlands varies considerably according to the nature of the materials. For example, the frosting of volcanic ash at Badlands National Park succumbs quickly as the Wall advances northward into the upper plain - the original land surface - exposing the more durable underlying beds of the Brule formation.
Nature’s answer to great resistance is to carve steeper slopes, resulting here in incredibly slender spires above knife-sharp ridges and intricately creased slopes. Deeper into the layer cake, the more rounded ridges and spurs and gentler slopes, reflect the softer mudstone of the Chadron formation. Numerous “islands” of Chadron mudstone dot the plain in front of the Wall. They look like nothing more than mud mounds, except for their striking color-banding which matches perfectly that of the base of the Wall. They are remnants, soon to be gone, of the earlier, ever changing Badlands.
Recreation
Enjoy park trails like Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, Fossil Exhibit Trail, or the more aggressive Notch Trail. Explore the limitless backcountry options available by hiking or backpacking.
Enjoy any of the ranger led programs offered throughout the day. Check at the visitor center or look in the park newspaper for more information. Visit the “Big Pig Dig”. A paleontological dig active each summer just accross the road from the Conata Picnic Area.
From the Badlands Loop Road take the drive on the unpaved Sage Creek Rim road to see bison, prairie dogs and the 64,000 acre wilderness area. Explore Sheep Mountain Table in the Stronghold Unit south of Scenic, SD.
Getting There
By Plane
Rapid City and Sioux Falls have airports with multiple commerical flights daily.
By Car
Take Interstate 90 to exit 110 or 131 to access Hwy 240 “Badlands Loop Road”. Hwy 44 west from Rapid City provides an alternate scenic route to the park.
Traveler Facts
Contact Information
Badlands National Park
25216 Ben Reifel Road
P. O. Box 6
Interior, SD 57750
Phone: 605-433-5361
Fax: 605-433-5248
Operating Hours & Seasons
The park is open 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Entrance fees are collected year round.
Weather/Climate
Badlands National Park experiences hot, dry summers with occasional violent thunderstorms. Winters are typically very cold with 12 to 24 inches of total snowfall. Extremely high winds are common year-round. Sudden and dramatic weather changes are common, so it’s good to be prepared for sudden changes. Hats, sunglasses and adequate water are recommended for hiking.
