Big Horned Sheep
First full day in the Badlands. We arrived last night, setup camp and attended a couple of ranger talks, one on local paleontology and the other on astronomy. The park is known for its prehistoric mammal fossils and is also a dark sky site. We stayed up late, but also got up early. It’s hot during the day, but quite cool at night. We hiked in the morning, before it got too warm, attended another ranger talk, this one was on local geology. When I get home again, I’m going to have a whole lot of mansplaining to do. At lunchtime, we toured the visitors center. Then it was off to the lookouts. There are an inordinate number of them in this park. Along the way, we saw a herd of Big Horned sheep, herds of buffalo, Prong-horned antelope and Prairie Dogs. If you don’t see Prairie Dogs, then you are just not looking. We also saw a Bull snake, which looks like a rattler and even try’s to imitate one, but is not venomous and lots of different birds too.
Lots of Oreodont fossils there i bet! 🙂
Yep, we went hunting, but came up dry
What ?
Interesting name for a park, any idea of it origin? 🙂
French trappers named it, probably because it was bad for beaver
My wife and I love The Badlands. I know people who have went to see Mt. Rushmore and skipped The Badlands. What a mistake. Badlands of North Dakota is also a great trip.
We’re having fun!
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