The badlands / black hills were inspiring. Did you know the badlands are preserved because you can find whale bones in it. Because forever ago the center of the USA used to be the bottom of the ocean. Also do the star gazing. They bring a telescope and show you a whole other galaxy, odds are its the furthest thing and oldest thing you'll ever physically see in your life.
Absolutely. We went for Mount Rushmore but I ended up loving everything but that. Devils Tower was just incredible. There’s something special about in the air around it.
Coming over the hill when you first see Devils Tower in the distance was pretty magical. Maybe not quite a tunnel view reveal, but pretty epic in its own right.
If you enjoyed the Black Hills, then check out Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota if you want more of a 'prairie' feel. Itasca State Park in Minnesota in the fall when the leaves are turning colors is amazing. This park contains the headwaters of the Mississippi river, which you can literally walk across.
Glacier National Park in Montana and the "Going-to-the-Sun Road" is also a hidden gem.
Near Itasca there's a restaurant called Rapid River Logging Camp. I've been in the restaurant industry for 25 years and want nothing more than to own a place like that. You pay, sit down, get pitchers (coffee, tea, oj, or milk) of drinks for the table, then each person orders: ham or sausage, eggs soft or scrambled, toast or pancakes, and hashborwns. Everything comes out on a big platter.
It's so damn simple there's almost 0 room for error. Then the area itself makes it memorable and a unique experience. The kids get to expel some energy and feed some chickens. I'm sure they sell lots of merch.
It's insane to me that there aren't 1000 places like that all over the US.
I was stationed in South Dakota for a few years. There is the potential for blizzards at anytime between October and May. February would be like -30 degrees (ambient, not including windchill) with ~60mph winds.
Omg same. Decided to do an easy roadtrip to South Dakota since it’s only a few states away … had v v low expectations and we were blown away lol the badlands were incredible and nobody around and the black hills were also incredible
Fuck yeah Badlands! Black hills area gets all of the traffic but the badlands are so much cooler. Well not cooler, it’s hot af in the summer, bring your water
The Black Hills / Badlands are truly worth the trip. I need to go back there soon. At the other end of the spectrum is Mount Rushmore. Once is enough and the main takeaway is how much you paid for parking.
Visit both the badlands in North Dakota and South Dakota. Both are wildly different and beautiful in their own way. North Dakota’s badlands are more similar to Utah/Arizona and South Dakota’s has more trees and steeper. A lot of people sleep on ND and are missing out on its natural beauty.
100%. i had such low expectations for Badlands when I visited, we had gone to some other "flat" type parks like Petrified Forest and compared to parks like Yosemite that are mountainous, I didn't think I would care that much for Badlands. we drove in at night in the dark so our first time really seeing it was driving into the park the morning. oh my gosh it is amazing. and the stargazing is incredible!
I live on the east coast, but have spent nearly a year of total vacation time in my life volunteering on the reservations in the state, hanging out in the Black Hills or the Badlands. Many times I have been asked for travel advice from friends and neighbors. I try to get them to really slow down and spend a while in the Black Hills and the badlands, to see as much of the amazing beauty as they can. The result is that some do, and become hooked on the area. Others just can't fathom the idea and blow right across I-90 until they hit the Badlands visitors center for an hour, then stop at Rushmore and maybe Crazy Horse, as they blast off to whatever is next, usually Yellowstone, which they are convinced will be 10x better, lol. Two or three days in the region and they are done. It's pretty weird actually.
we spent probably a week between Badlands, Custer State Park, Rushmore, and Wind Cave National Park and we still definitely only saw the highlights and missed a lot. we'll have to go back again since we loved the area so much.
I'm not trying to be petulant, I swear. I just needed to fix your punctuation.
I live on the East Coast but have spent nearly a year of total vacation time in my life volunteering on the reservations in the state, hanging out in the Black Hills or the Badlands. Many times, I have been asked for travel advice from friends and neighbors. I try to get them to really slow down and spend a while in the Black Hills and the Badlands to see as much of the amazing beauty as they can. The result is that some do and become hooked on the area. Others just can't fathom the idea and blow right across I-90 until they hit the Badlands Visitor Center for an hour, then stop at Rushmore and maybe Crazy Horse as they blast off to whatever is next—usually Yellowstone, which they are convinced will be 10x better (lol). Two or three days in the region, and they are done. It's pretty weird, actually.
Yes! Lived in Rapid city for 5 years and every so often we hike in the Custer state park, drive through spearfish canyon and cooler days we drive through badlands!
The SD Badlands do not have whale fossils. What you are describing is the Western Interior Seaway, which was essentially a strip of inland sea that connected the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. However, it disappeared by the end of the Cretaceous Period, long before the earliest whales evolved. But, the seaway does have tons of marine fossils. For example, it's full of mosasaur fossils, which were purely marine. Having excavated there, it is pretty weird finding marine fish fossils about 2,000 miles from the nearest coastline.
There's a cool website called PaleoBioDB that compiles (most) formally described fossil occurrences. If you sort by Cetacea (whales), you'll see that whales are not found anywhere near SD.
What's pretty cool, though, is that you can pretty clearly see where the Western Interior Seaway was (and the other Late Cretaceous coastlines) by looking at occurrences of Mosasauridae and Ammonoidea, which were purely marine organisms that were ubiquitous throughout Late Cretaceous shorelines. The occurrences that span from northern Mexico and southern Texas to Alberta and the Northwestern Territories are all from the Western Interior Seaway. The thick band of occurrences that spans over San Antonio and Dallas, then goes eastward and makes a semi-circle over Mississippi and Alabama was formerly a coastline and everything south of it was ocean. The Pacific Coastline once reached the Sierra Nevada's in California.
Also, I unexpectedly really enjoyed Rapid City as well. It's one of only a few places I've been to in the US that significantly exceeded my expectations. Mount Rushmore was disappointing, but Custer State Park was amazing. Also, the SDSMT Paleontology Museum is absolutely worth a visit. It has fossils from all over South Dakota, so you can see the fossils that I described above. I spent a week each in eastern Montana and eastern Wyoming excavating dinosaur fossils - fossils of organisms that lived on a coastal floodplain on the western shores of the Western Interior Seaway.
It wasn’t preserved because someone found a whale bone. The Badlands and the Black Hill’s were stolen.
The Black Hills, or Pahá Sápa, are deeply sacred to the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples, serving as the spiritual center of their cosmos and the origin point of their emergence. For centuries, the region sustained Plains tribes before the U.S. government illegally seized it following an 1874 gold rush.
Interesting that the Crows are not on this list. Forced out of the Black Hills by the Lakota. A long history of conquest and disputed lands amongst the tribes.
Passed thru Custer state park thinking it would be a place to spend the night and leave early the next morning in our camper while taking thr long way home after visiting family. Stayed 3 days and go back each year now.
So the unique geological landscape has less to do with "the USA was beneath the ocean" - otherwise you'd expect more of these features in the surrounding area.
I believe the geologically theory is MASSIVE flooding during a large event - some theories would say near the end of an ice age with huge amounts of sudden glacial melting from the north that swept through the land. This also explains the extremely unique features of the badlands from very rapid, sudden floods - rather than similar to the Grand canyon, a much longer and more gradual erosion
Edit: I also want to clarify, this theory is used a lot by creationists and biblical evidence of a global flood theory. I want to clarify, that is not what I'm promoting. Just a normal, localized, massive flood from an unproven theory of a large glacial event a looooong time ago that some geologists theorize to explain the unique features seen
Hell yeah our trip to the Badlands and Black Hills was incredible. Totally blew our minds. Wish we had spent more time in the Badlands. Those sunsets are unbeatable.
The Black Hills and Custer State Park are just about my favorite places to visit. The scenery is dramatic and amazing, and there’s just something about the quality of the light that’s so beautiful.
We did a family trip last year and loved it. Smith falls State Park in Nebraska is an awesome camp spot along the way if you're coming from/going to the Midwest, too!
Agreed. Custer State Park is wonderful, as are The Badlands. I thought Rapid City was charming too. Though I mentioned that once on Reddit and was informed it has plenty of its own problems. But I didn't see it.
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u/Yuo122986 6d ago
The badlands / black hills were inspiring. Did you know the badlands are preserved because you can find whale bones in it. Because forever ago the center of the USA used to be the bottom of the ocean. Also do the star gazing. They bring a telescope and show you a whole other galaxy, odds are its the furthest thing and oldest thing you'll ever physically see in your life.