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Badlands National Park

Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz / CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

🏜️ Canyons & deserts

Badlands National Park

Interior, SD · High Plains

About

The Badlands rise from South Dakota's prairie as a maze of sharply eroded buttes, spires, and banded pinnacles, the layers stacked in stripes of rust, gold, and gray. Walk the boardwalk-and-scramble Door Trail straight into the formations near Interior, or drive the Badlands Loop Road for bighorn sheep, bison, and prairie dogs. The park also guards one of the world's richest fossil beds, where ancient horses and saber-toothed cats once roamed.

Highlights

Badlands Loop Road (SD-240) with classic overlooks like Big Badlands and PinnaclesDoor Trail and Notch Trail through the eroded rock near the Ben Reifel Visitor CenterWildlife: bighorn sheep, bison, pronghorn, and prairie dog townsFossil Exhibit Trail and one of the world's richest mammal fossil bedsDark skies and a designated mixed-grass prairie wilderness

Getting there

25216 Ben Reifel Road, Interior, SD 57750

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