T H E   B A D L A N D S   -   D A Y   # 2

Monday, August 23, 2004

My first full day in the Badlands is going to be a good one, you're in for a treat. Today's drive will take me into the heart of the park. But before I can partake in my scenic tour I have to first drive back to Wall, SD to buy 2 disposable 35mm cameras, a Band-Aid for having broke my digital camera on yesterday's "washboard" bike ride.

I figure I'll take a limited set of pictures at 27 per day (with my digital I'm used to taking an upwards of 250 pictures) and when I develop the film, I'll go for the CD option. That way I can pull the digital images off the CD and effectively fill the photo-void the broken digital camera has created. I'll make plans to shop for a digital camera later, when I arrive in Minneapolis, MN to visit friends.

I start my tour. Yowza, look at the color and picture quality! Looking at this picture, you'd think you're visiting a different website. It just goes to show how washed up my old digital camera was.

Believe it or not, these formations are made up of crumbly clay and soft wormhole sandstone. Due to their fragile nature, they erode at about 1 inch per year. So geologically speaking, they are on the fast-track to oblivion. Compare this to Mount Rushmore's erosion rate of 1 inch per 10,000 years and you get the idea.

The red horizontal layers represent decayed vegetation due to the iron deposits they've left behind. All of the park's lush, green vegetation originated from seeds deposited by birds that have passed through the area throughout the millennium. For as dry as the Badlands are (15 inches of rain per year) it supports some amazingly large and diverse variety of plant life.

This ledge is a spot where native Indians used to herd buffalo, only to drive them over. The buffalo would fall over the ledge and either fall to their death or be critically injured. The archeologists know this due to all the bones and human cutting tools found at the bottom of the ledge.