Badlands National Park is quite an experience. Earlier in our trip we went to the Petrified Forest National Park where there are some badlands, but these are much different. The plains of South Dakota are a far cry from the desert of Arizona. By definition, badlands are arid and hot. I was quite surprised to see so much green and grasses throughout the park.

An example of how the soft sandstone on the surface can dry up and crack if it does not receive enough rain. Nearby we also saw mud in a low-lying area where there was no place for the water to runoff.

On the top of this badland formation you can see that there is a large field of grass. About one hundred years ago there were homesteaders in this part of South Dakota who tried to get their cattle to graze on these raised fields, but they were unable to get the cattle up the steep sides. Instead they took apart a lawn mower, cut all of the grass down, bailed it and then rolled the bails down the hill where they gave it to their cattle. Now only some goats and elk can get to the top of these steep badlands to reach the grass.

It was truly incredible to see these badlands up close and to learn about them in depth in the visitor’s center. For instance, we learned that the soft sandstone that makes up these badlands can erode at a rate of one inch per year, as opposed to the granite that makes up the faces on Mount Rushmore that erodes about an inch for every 1,000 years. You can see a few hoodoos in this picture, and there were many more throughout the park. Hoodoos are very interesting geological formations where a hard rock sits on top of a softer rock and the soft rock slowly erodes away beneath it, leaving a spire or cone shape below it.