Zero Mile Day

Staying Put

This day was an important one, both for the trip and simply for me on a personal level. My personality is one that wants to stick to an agenda, so the decision to throw my plan off by a day and just stay put in Interior, South Dakota, with the hope that the weather would be improved the following day, wasn’t hastily made. That being said, once I made the decision, that was that and I settled-in to enjoy a zero-mile day after two long stretches of driving.

While I spent a good deal of time writing postcards, organizing videos and photographs, creating online posts and putting together a few playlists for the rest of the trip, I was determined to get out and see parts of Badlands National Park (BNP)  that I wouldn’t have gotten to see had I simply driven through. This included a five mile hike comprised of the Medicine Root and Castle trails, which seemed like a reasonable trek given what I hike on a regular basis back home. In the early afternoon, I collected my things and set-out.

Not So Fast

The weather was worse than I thought it was, but I was determined to do a bit of hiking. After purchasing some mementos at the visitors center, I entered the Badlands Loop Road and made it to the Saddle Pass trail head. While inside my car, I put on my rain gear, got my GoPro attached to my new chest mount, grabbed my trekking poles and got to walking.

I only got about ten feet down the trail before I made a 180-degree turn and headed back to my car.

Yes, it felt like defeat, but there was honestly no way around it. The terrain in BNP after a couple of days of constant raining is impassable. It felt like I was trying to gain traction through an inch of corn syrup. Given the fact that I didn’t know what that “Backcountry Registration” thing was that I passed when entering the trail, I’m probably fortunate the situation was bad enough to turn me around. (FYI — “Backcountry Registration” is where people sign a log before entering remote trailheads or heading-out to camp overnight. In-case something happens to you, it gives people a place to start looking for your body.)

Salvaging the Day and Preparing for Tomorrow

The afternoon wasn’t a complete loss. After packing-up my stuff, I checked-out a few sights further down the road and then walked the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail back near the visitor center. The trail was easily accessible and heavily trafficked, but it still gave me some things to look at through the mist and fog. On the way back to the motel room, I ate a hot dinner at Cedar Pass Lodge, which was a welcome change from the previous two days of trail mix.

Back at the motel, I got everything organized and ready to go for the morning. In preparation for the next day, which was to be the pinnacle of the trip (as far as I knew up to that moment), I decided to watch “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. It was hard to believe that less than 24 hours from that moment I’d be seeing Devils Tower in person!