Badlands National Park, SD

We spent the whole day in the Badlands National Park.

But before leaving Wall early morning, I checked out the National Grasslands Visitor Center there to learn about grasslands habitats and watched an interesting documentary on the black footed ferret. The species was almost extinct; a small group of ferrets was discovered and re-introduced to the Badlands area. These cute looking animals are now self sustaining but the population is small and they are still endangered.

Black footed ferrets' eat mostly prairie dogs, which appeared to be abundunt in the Badlands. We saw many prairie dog hills on the grasslands as we drove towards the Badlands NP. We got up close and personal with a few during a stop at a visitor center. These look like they were used to human visitors as they came close to us. There were even a couple of albino prairie dogs.

The Badlands landscape was amazing. We stopped at the Ben Reifel Visitor Center where I had my National Parks passport stamped, got a map and looked at the exhibits. It was rather crowded at the Center. We drove the scenic loop road (Highway 240), stopped at overlooks and hiked a few trails. And of course, took a lot of photos.

Late afternoon, we made our way to the Wall rim located just outside the national park, and found dispersed camping (on marked sites) on the rim. It was a great location to watch the sun set over the Badlands.