SD Day 4: The GOOD Badlands

Years ago,

We spent about an hour here

(And Mom is pretty sure she and Tucker didn’t leave the car).

We thought it deserved better than that.

We stopped for the mandatory sign picture

And continued across the plain

Can you see them???

A HUGE herd of bison

And about 1/3 of them are calves!!!

This was the view from the Visitor Center parking lot:

It’s going to be a great day!

First up was Notch Trail.

We set out over the rock formations

We had to scurry up a few hills

And one really big scramble

But the view was worth it:

So was the look back from where we came

We decided to wander a bit on the way back

And scrambled up several passes in the rock

We found another “notch” too!

It was gorgeous

Here is the famous ladder—

It has a heck of a traffic jam.

We had to sort of force ourselves in line to get down

Then we headed to Door Trail

How about THIS view?

We took a lot of picture

There was trail that headed way out into Badlands,

Going from cairn to cairn.

Yes, we’ll take that trail!

There were plenty of rocks to scramble up too

The views were really breathtaking

Definitely worth a family picture 

We had a tailgate lunch and then set off on our next hike of the day:

Castle Trail to Saddle Pass

There was a washed out gully that looked pretty cool…

Until we thought about the rattlesnakes that might be down there

So we stuck to the highlands,

Following the cairns

There were lots of formations that gave the trail its name

There was some cool vegetation too

When we got to the Saddle Pass,

A few decided to skip it and scramble up

Can you see them???

While some of us scrambled down

(This is the look back)

Here is what it looked like at the bottom

Here’s our family picture

(Can you see J, W, and B on the ridge behind us?)

Then we trekked back

And the views were just as cool

With 7 miles under our belts,

We decided to sit back and relax and take the scenic drive

Panoramic Point 

We found a lone bison in this valley

Before landing at Yellow Mounds

Aren’t they cool?

We found a few more bison

At Pinnacles Overlook

We decided to venture a bit further onto

Sage Creek Road.

We heard this was where the wildlife hung out.

We saw a pronghorn

These tiny burrowing owls

And then we found this big guy,

Right by the road,

Itching his belly on a post

Jack caught/edited this with his new fancy camera

A little further and we ran into him

And them

And these guys.

Bison were EVERYWHERE!

Beckett was in 7th heaven.

We topped off the night with another rousing round (or 3)

Of Monopoly Deal.

That was a pretty GOOD day!