Breathtaking sunsets await travelers to Badlands National Park/NPS, Larry McAfee

Eerily eroded "badlands" -- what other word would you use to describe these naked hills? -- are front and center in Badlands National Park, evidence of the harsh environment and the poor soils. But there's more geology to the Badlands than just its namesake hills.

True, you have the "Yellow Mounds," slight mounds colored yellow by the severely weathered soils. It's a landscape that began to take form 69 million years ago when this part of the country was underwater, covered by an ancient sea. Once the waters drained away, rivers and floods added more sediment, and over the eons the rippled and eroded landscape you see today arose.

Within this landscape, too, are bits and pieces of ancient life that once roamed here. Back in 2010, a 7-year-old visitor to Badlands spied a partially exposed fossil that turned out to be the skull of a 32-million-year-old saber-toothed cat. Kylie Ferguson was attending a Junior Ranger program at the park that year when she thought she saw a fossil in a hillside near the Ben Reifel Visitor Center. 

Not long after the fossil was spotted, park paleontological technicians removed the fossil and surrounding rock matrix to protect the find from damage or theft. Upon examination, it was determined that the find was the fossilized skull, lower jaw, and vertebrae belonging to an extinct saber-toothed cat, known scientifically as Hoplophoneus.

Visit Badlands and you'll come away with a little better understanding of some of the conditions the homesteaders of the 19th century and early 20th century faced and endured. The winds can be merciless, as Traveler contributor Lee Dalton noted during a 2013 visit. "The wind is relentless, and it’s not hard to understand how so many of the people who busted sod in this open land commented that the wind could drive one mad," he wrote. "It did drive some to madness, in fact. It was a harsh land then that isn’t any less unforgiving today for those who come unprepared."

And yet, Badlands is a fascinating place. Geogically rich, and harboring paleontological treasures, the park in western South Dakota is home to some bison, enough rattlesnakes to make you very carefully place your feet and hands while exploring the park, and flush with solitude.

Writer Bryan Hansel found the park practically all to himself during a winter visit that left him in awe of the landscape.

Badlands National Park in South Dakota is about an hour east of the Black Hills and Rapid City. Its 244,000 acres protect a mixed-grass prairie and 26- to 75-million-year-old sediment eroded into spires, buttes and rugged cliffs. It also contains one of the richest fossil beds in the world. Almost any hike into the formations yields a fossil. The park instructs you to leave them in place and report your finds. On my first, we found a skull, a leg bone of a 35-million-year-old horse-like mammal, and an almost complete tortoise with leg and neck bones sticking out of its shell. We reported our finds and later heard back about what animals they were from.

The park itself is divided into several units. The North Unit is the most popular. It’s popular because it’s close to the Interstate and it has a road, the Badlands Loop Road, running straight through it. The Stronghold Unit located within Pine Ridge Indian Reservation has no roads and Palmer Creek Unit is surrounded by private property. The ease of access to the North Unit makes it the most popular and usually the busiest.

If you like parks "in the raw," Badlands National Park should definitely be on your travel agenda.

Traveler's Choice For: Geology, solitude, hiking, wildlife, inspiring future paleontologists.