Goodtimes in the Badlands

“We’ll keep pushin’ till it’s understood, and these badlands start treating us good”

Bruce Springsteen

The early French colonists dubbed these eerily eroded plains as ‘bad lands” to travel through, but the Latoka Indians had a very different view. If you moved with the land, the seasons and followed the Buffalo, these lands were an extension of the Great Spirits’ generosity. Today, there is still a mystical majesty within these landscapes.

The slowly melting substrates are a major drawcard for western bound travellers, and the easily accessible short trails are packed with sweaty tourists. It’s here that we learn an important lesson about pack mentality: the vast majority of trophy tourists do not venture far from the car park, if they ever get out of the car in the first place. At first there are hundreds milling about, venture out 500 yards and there are dozens, and a half a mile out it’s just you. In moments, we are completely lost in our own world.

The rich prairie grasslands are filled with life; delightful Prairie Dogs, Burrowing Owls, Swallows, Thirteen striped Chipmunks, huge beetles and Swallows swooping everywhere. The softly silted streams are a rich hunting ground for fossil hunting, with 78 million years of history buried under your feet. Recently, a 7 year old girl on a junior ranger program found the ancient remains of a Sabre Tooth Tiger, leading to a whole new archeological dig site. It’s incredible to realise that you are standing on what used to be a seabed that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico through to Canada.

This truly is a kids paradise, with opportunities for climbing everywhere! After a rigorous discussion on the delicate difference between doing risky things (calm and reasoned), and taking a risk (“Hey y’all, watch this!!”), we join the boys for hours of adventure in the crumbling hills. Clambering over the pink spires and through deep, cool gullies with rolling green prairie lands below is a unique experience.

After a hot day of adventuring, it’s a relief to cool down under the darkening skies at the nearby Cedar Pass Campground. In theory, this place offers some of the darkest nighttime skies for stargazing, but we are foiled by a screen of low cloud and have to settle for a misty view of a waning quarter moon instead.

Julian wakes with the dawn, and heads off to “the office”, for a 6 mile run in the cooler morning air. The beautiful views are inspirational to his out-of-shape legs, which defy age and a complete lack of training to get his tired ass back to base camp. The experience is soured by how much trash was seen en route, a small smorgasbord of which is shown below.

Next stop, the black hills of Custer State Park, where we aim to get up close and personal with some larger than life sculptures.