I arrived at The Badlands National Park first thing in the morning and stopped by the Visitor’s Center to pick up a topographical map, fill up on water, and check in with the park rangers.  The first ranger I spoke to recommended I started by hiking some of the more established trails on the east side of the park.  As I got to the end of the first short trail (2 miles round trip) I was glad I listened to her.  It was an amazing view looking south across the grasslands.  The hike was an easy one so I decided to do another established trail before heading over to my real destination.  The second trail allowed for a lot of deviations, which made me happy.  You could wonder off of it to climb up one of the rock formations, then easily find it again.  It was a 10 mile loop, but since this was an established trail, the hike was easy.

The Badlands are essentially huge rock formations that are eroding.  They jump out of the otherwise grassy South Dakota plains in random formations.  Sometimes it looks like one rock just popped up in the middle of no where.  Other times they looked like mountain ranges, cutting the mix of grasslands and desert in two.  This trail was busy, I passed a few families and couples all taking in the awesome view.  For lunch, I climbed to the top of one rock formation (about 50 vertical feet), found a shady overhang and took out my per-prepared PBJs. In front of me was the trail, which cut through the tall grass in this particular spot.  In other places it was a dried up riverbed that more resembled a desert than the grassy plains.  Still, other parts of the trail were through rocky ravines that looked like they zigzagged for no rhyme or reason.

It was a great start to my trip, but the real reason I came here was still ahead.  I stopped by the Visitor’s Center again to fill up on water, this time making sure I had at least two gallons worth.  I was heading to the western side of the Park for the Badlands Wilderness Area (specifically the Sage Creek area) for two days worth of backcountry backpacking and camping.  I had looked up a few things ahead of time about this area, but I made sure to double check a few items with a ranger before starting my hike.  They confirmed what I had read: the water held too much sediment to drink, stay 100 feet away from wildlife, there was one campsite to the far west and it had no water, it was highly unlikely I would have cell service at any point.  The ranger wished me luck and I drove to a parking spot off a dirt road.  I triple checked the map and my location on my phone before setting it to airplane mode (Fun fact: My GoPro needed a software update and didnt work. So my cell phone would be my camera.).  Confident that I had my location on the map, I headed south down a large hill, into the wilderness.  Also, that is not me trying to make it sound cool, it was literally called “the Badlands Wilderness Area.”

The hiking was not difficult at first.  The slope of the hill kept the grass to knee height for the most part.  It wasn’t until I got about a half mile down the hill until it flattened out.  At this point the grass became taller, roughly to my waist on average.  Trees were very sparse and I was able to avoid any creeks/rivers until a mile and a half in.  At this point I came across my first major obstacle.  The river banks were incredibly steep and soft.  It wasn’t that it would be hard to get down them, but getting back up the other side would have been a large undertaking.  So I followed the small river west for awhile until I found a place that bison clearly used to cross.  There were large footprints which had been weathered.  At a glance they looked like bear tracks as they were so deep, but the soft dirt/sand mix caused each step to go deeper than you’d think.  I crossed the creek and headed towards another creek.  For me it was easiest to navigate if I found a creek that was on the map.  Although, I’ll say that I could not find one creek that had either dried up or only existed during heavy rains.  Using the creeks as cross streets and a large butte to the west, navigating this area was not difficult.

The only eventful part the rest of the day was my brief encounter with a rattlesnake.  Signs on the established trails earlier in the day warned me about them, but I hadn’t seen one.  This little guy was as afraid of me as I was of him.  Luckily I was using a stick to move the grass in front of me, and as I pulled it back I heard the distinctive rattle.  He was coiled up staring at me.  I made sure there wasn’t another one and slowly moved around him.  I’m sure he went back to his friends and told them about the encounter with this random guy in the middle of nowhere.  I wasn’t afraid at the time, but after reflecting on it, I did get a little nervous.  I was about 7 miles from any road, which was a small dirt road that few traveled on, and was pretty sure I had no cell service.  Getting bit out here would be every definition of the phrase life-threatening.

I shook off my encounter and kept heading to my predetermined campsite.  I had chose a spot on the map that looked relatively flat, away from any potential flooding area, but had a hill next to it in case of lightening.  It was about 15 miles from the road where I departed, so I picked up my pace to make it there before nightfall.  As I set up camp, I watched the sun set not on the horizon, but instead into dark clouds.  I knew I was about to get hit by a storm, I just hoped it wasn’t going to be a strong one. I ate dinner, then headed to bed as the rain started to fall.