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Southwestern South Dakota

Today I'll spend the day van-touring the more scenic portions of the park.

Yowza, look at the brilliant color produced by the film camera! Looking at this picture, you'd think you were visiting a different park compared to yesterday's pictures. It just goes to show me how washed up my old digital was. Good thing it's broken, yay!

Believe it or not, these formations are entirely 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. The lush, green vegetation was jump-started long ago by seeds deposited by passing birds. For as dry as the Badlands are, the park's environment supports amazingly large and diverse plant life.

This little ledge is a spot where native Indians used to herd buffalo. Once herded to the edge, the Indians would drive them all over to their doom. The buffalo would spill over the ledge and either fall to their death or be critically injured. The archeologists know this due to all the animal bones and human cutting tools found at the bottom of the ledge. The Indians were pretty smart hunters.

After a little more driving I encounter the most colorful section of the park. Hues of red, orange, and yellow are everywhere. Visitors can climb on any and all formations, it's a regular free-for-all. There are a number of folks crawling on the formations and I have to patiently wait for them to clear out so I can take my shots.

Driving along I see in the distance a splash of yellow. The second picture should be more yellow but the shot doesn't quite show it. The yellow is a result of decayed marine life.