The Badlands of South Dakota

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map of the Black Hills area of South Dakota

The Badlands

The Black Hills & Mount Rushmore

Custer State Park

Mammoths & Wind Cave National Park

	This travelogue is one family's experience in the Black Hills area of South Dakota. To see a photo in a 1024 x 681 size, just click on it. Note that the panoramic shots are as wide as 1600 pixels when you click on them, so make your browser as wide as you can. We hope you enjoy the record of our journey, and that you get to experience your own.
Downtown Scenic, SD, which is an almost abandoned village at the edge of the Badlands National Park. It has a Post Office and a run down mini-mart with a gas station. The pictured Longhorn Saloon now only serves the ghosts of its past.
I call this shot the "Road to Nowhere." It was taken along BIA-2, a forlorn stretch of road in the Stronghold Unit of Badlands National Park, which is on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
This is a panoramic shot of the Badlands as you enter the reservation.
This is a shot of Teresa and I as we're about to enter the reservation. Incidentally, we went into the badlands on a tour with Carrie Bowers, who runs Black Hills Adventure Tours. Instead of going into the "commercial" part of the park operated by the National Park Service, we went into the Stronghold Unit operated by the Pine Ridge Indians.
Here is a shot of the sandstone mountains that inhabit the badlands. The shot was taken in the Stronghold Unit on a cold, rainy, dreary day. Normally, photographers like early morning or late evening sunlight, but there was something apropos about shooting the badlands in dreary weather. The mood fit the topography.
Here's another vista of barren nothingness within the park. About the only thing recognizable as civilized is the green grass.
This view is from the Red Shirt Table Overlook, which is also in the Stronghold Unit. This shows clearly why they call it the badlands.
Here's the SUV we took on our tour. It was sparkling clean when we went into the park. It was caked with mud after a day of bouncing along the back roads of the badlands. As Rod Stewart says, "Every picture tells a story, don't it."
	Click here to tour the Black Hills.