Returning, Part 2: Badlands National Park

Waking-Up In Camp, One Last Time

At about 4:30 AM, I woke-up with a start. This is my fourth time waking-up in a tent on my trip and I have to admit I’m beginning to enjoy it. This morning it was about 35-degrees and I could see my breath in the tent. After some tossing and turning, I climbed out and walked-up to the edge of the campground to set-up my GoPro and get a time lapse of the tower during sunrise. After getting it set-up, I headed back to the tent, thinking I might get a bit more sleep, but quickly gave-up and decided to begin proofing a magazine for my mom on my iPad.

Leaving Devils Tower

By 7:30 AM I was packed-up and ready to leave Devils Tower. Along the way out of the park, I stopped to take a bunch of pictures with the Bronica. It was hard leaving Devils Tower. One of the things I’ve had trouble with on this trip is feeling like I’ve truly appreciated the experience at times. There were quite a few full-stops on the way out of the park where I simply stood there admiring the tower and reflecting on my trip so far.

Scratching a Visit to Wind Cave National Park

My original plan was to add a visit to Wind Cave National Park which is along a path to Badlands National Park from Devils Tower. As usual, I hadn’t thoroughly researched Wind Cave NP and discovered the night before that touring the caves was the big thing to do there (go figure) and, like Mammoth Cave, you had to reserve spots to tour the different caves in the park. There were no reservations left for any of the cave tours when I looked, so I reluctantly decided to scratch visiting the park (just so I could get a stamp in my passport(s) and add something to the collection). Instead, I decided to drive through Mount Rushmore and add the stamp(s) that I didn’t get when I visited that park three years ago.

Wall Drug

Okay, everyone, I’ve finally visited Wall Drug. After viewing all 10,000 billboards between Mount Rushmore and Wall, South Dakota, I finally visited this road trip institution. No, I didn’t get a cup of five-cent coffee or anything else, really. To be honest, it felt like Jamie’s Flea Market from back home with more people. It just wasn’t that interesting to me.

Badlands National Park

As it was with visiting Devils Tower for a second time, there was much less excitement while entering Badlands National Park today. That being said, I think I enjoyed it a lot more than my last time through, because I’d already seen everything and knew exactly where I wanted to spend more time and what hike I wanted to take.

The first place I stopped at was where the Yellow Mounds emerge from the ground. The Yellow Mounds are arguably my favorite feature in the national parks system. My last time through Badlands, I wasn’t expecting to turn a corner and find these bubbling, candy corn-esque mountains, and the first thing that came to mind was Willy Wonka’s chocolate factor. This time I spent a lot of time checking them out in the multiple spots where they occur. Like the rest of the park, they didn’t look as spectacular in the late-afternoon light when it was all very dry, but they still made me smile when I imagined them being massive pieces of candy corn growing out of the ground.

At this point, I went straight to the visitors center to get my stamp(s) and souvenirs, then did some grocery shopping and checked-in to my motel room. Then I headed back to the Saddle Pass trailhead to hike the trail(s) that I’d so badly wanted to hike three years ago, but couldn’t due to the horrible weather. The Saddle Pass Trail goes straight-up a sandy, slippery slope through some badlands up to another trailhead leading to the Medicine Root Loop and Castle Trails. These trails form about a four-mile loop on level ground through grassy prairies and jagged badlands.

It was right at the beginning when I finally saw a snake on my trip, but it was a bright green snake rather than a rattlesnake. The Medicine Root Trail gave fantastic views of badlands formations in the distance and wide-open prairies. Then, the trail meets the eastern termination point of the Castle Trail and takes that back to the beginning. The Castle Trail is drastically different from the Medicine Root Loop Trail in that the vegetation and prairies are replaced by towering badlands formations and jagged, melting mounds.

For a change, I brought plenty of water and laid-on the sunscreen before I headed-out, so it was probably the most enjoyable hike of my trip. Again, I tried my best to dwell on areas, rather than speed-hike my way through the loop. There weren’t too many people on the trails, so I mostly had it all to myself. The trip back down Saddle Pass was perilous. Thankfully, I had a trekking pole with me, but I could’ve used both of them because every other step threatened to send me down the trail on my ass.

Wrapping-Up Two Days Worth of Experiences

Once back at the motel, I finished unpacking and then got started on blog posts for the past two days. Part of me wanted to combine the two days into a single post, but it wouldn’t be fair to each of those days because each of them was so rich with experiences. The trip to Devils Tower was reserved along the lines of videos and photographs, but today’s trip through the Badlands absolutely buried me in media. When I left on my trip, I had four 128 GB cards for my GoPros. They are almost all filled-up after five weeks of traveling. It’s almost too much to comprehend right now, honestly. Once these tasks were finished, I laid down to one of my final three nights on the road.