Our last national park of this trip!! Neither Neil nor I had ever been to Badlands before, and honestly, half a day was plenty. Glad we went, don't feel a need to go again.
We hiked the Door, Window, and Notch trails.
And we drove the full scenic loop and stopped at every single viewpoint.
Our kids really loved stopping at every viewpoint.
Some more than others. Isn't this a cool photo??!!!
It's interesting how similar this is visually to some of the formations in southern Utah, but the material seems so much more prone to erosion that it's amazing to me that this even still exists.
Some really cool coloring in one part of the park!
So the material that all of these crazy hoodoos are made from feels more like hard dirt than rock. And people were climbing ALL OVER IT. Like everywhere. It was really pretty frustrating to see how much had been worn away by people climbing; there were very clear polished trails through just about everything.
There were also signs warning you to stay on the trail because of rattlesnakes, but nothing that said "You're going to ruin the park if you keep climbing on it, you fools," but we made our kids stay off it anyway (at first they were annoyed at us and then as we walked through more of the park and saw how badly damaged things were from tourists, they were annoyed at the "flampers," as Abigail nicknamed flipflop hikers several years ago and it's now become part of our family lexicon. Basically shorthand for the kind of people who set out on a hike wearing flipflops and carrying a 20oz plastic waterbottle).
Anyway, I digress. Enjoy this picture of a child climbing up the formation.
And another.
We went in the early morning and it was about 90 by 9 am. So definitely bring tons of water, start early, and I would honestly not hike very far.
We hiked about three miles total and felt like we got a good overview of the park.
I can't believe there are still more pictures and I have to think of more things to say! Okay, here's one--it's actually really cool how these just kind of BAM appear out of what seems to be very flat land. Part of it is canyons that just come out of nowhere, and then on the other side of the park it's mountains rising out of flat plain.
Kids feeling desperate for shade already...maybe we can't do Glacier in August after all.
This is the Notch trail, which is about 1.5 miles long and pretty fun.
And this is the very end of the Door trail.
All the kids were there!
And I was also there! Feeling greatly restored after our first night in actual beds in 2 weeks, hurray!!
HOW MANY PICTURES DID I TAKE?! Okay, these stripes are actually pretty cool.
So there you have it! Badlands! Another national park ticked off our bucket list, and it provided our kids some good discussion as to whether they thought this or the St. Louis Arch was a more anticlimactic national park (they decided on St. Louis based less on the fact that it's manmade and more on the fact that it's a Trump-era designation).
And then we drove through the night and got home just in time for the girls to wash all their stuff and pack up for girls' camp! Woohoo, we know how to party.
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