Lightning from a thunderstorm overnight ignited a wildfire in the Sage Creek area of Badlands National Park. The Sage Creek area is accessed via a dirt and gravel road approximately one-half mile (0.8 km) south of the Pinnacles Entrance. The landscape all around there is mixed-grass prairie prone to ignition due to the dry summer.
How much do you really know about units of the National Park System? You may know more than you think! Test your knowledge with this latest Traveler quiz and trivia piece, #77.
Badlands National Park in South Dakota is a land of extremes, from fantastic rock formations created by wind and water, to a vast “ocean” of mixed-grass prairie. The park is home to a variety of wildlife, both present and past – some 33 million years or more past. You can see most of the park on a 2-hour drive, but you really should stick around a little longer.
There are so many interesting things to see and learn about units of the National Park System, so here’s the latest quiz and trivia piece with which to test your knowledge. Just how much do you really know about the parks and what’s in them?
Badlands National Park in South Dakota is dotted with many view areas. Some of these areas (like the Burns Basin Overlook) are prefect not only sunrise, but also sunset and that time just before sunrise and just after sunset, known as the "blue hour," when the sky and landscape are bathed with blue, pink, and purple. You might also see a full moon and perhaps even the atmospheric phenomenon known as the "belt of Venus."
Wildlife Biologist, Phil Dobesh and the Conata Basin/Badlands National Park black-footed ferret recovery implementation team have been working overtime lately, worried about the black-footed ferret population.
With a one-sentence ruling the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to consider the helicopter industry's challenge to commercial overflight bans at Badlands National Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
The National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service have confirmed plague as the cause of a prairie dog die off in Badlands National Park, Buffalo Gap National Grassland, and the greater Conata-Badlands ecosystem, all in South Dakota based on a test result received 5/31.
One could be forgiven for thinking this is a national park you can see in an hour or so then move on along to the next big thing, because you can see so much from the road. To really get a feel for Badlands, however, you should spend at least a couple of days, if not more. This is especially true if you are a photographer loaded with cameras and gear.
Badlands National Park is a treasure trove of fossils, including these small, spherical, fossil dung beetle balls. Yup, that's right, fossilized dung beetle balls around 30 million years old, during a time when the landscape was a semi-tropical grassland with open forests.