Backpacking – Page 3

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.

10553561_10100159275024090_7047930796257967724_n 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. Continue reading “The Badlands – Day 1” →

On a little bit of a whim, I decided to take a backpacking/camping trip somewhere in the United States. I knew that I wanted to camp somewhere and do some hiking, but I did not have a specific place in mind. So I researched a few places and made a list of possibilities. Trying to narrow the list down was harder than I thought. It included national parks, state parks, and national forests. Each had pluses and minus. National parks are large and well documented and when the map says there will be a campsite in a place, it will be there. State parks range in size and are generally set up more for day trips than ongoing overnight adventures. National forests are less restrictive in what you can do. For example, you can hunt, bring pets on trails, and sometimes bring a motorcycle through a National Forest.

I came up with eight possible states to visit. To the east: Tennessee, North Carolina, Virgina, and Kentucky. To the west: Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Each presented very different situations, but the goal was the same for every one of them: arrive, park, register, hike, camp, hike, camp, hike, leave. Two nights spent out under the stars with no one else around for miles. Continue reading “Coin Flip Road Trip” →