Exploring and taking pictures – Badlands National Park and vicinity, August 11, 2014
The Door Trail, near the east entrance to Badlands National Park, leads to a broken landscape that earned the area its name. Over time, water sliced through the earth in this area, exposing sedimentary rock layers, eroding them into dramatic canyons and spires.
We had gone quite a ways out on this trail on a previous visit. This time, though we were at the beginning of a day in the park and we didn’t want to burn ourselves out too soon.
We didn’t see any rattlesnakes this trip, but we did last visit, in 2007. This kind of terrain is prime habitat for rattlers, from what I gather.
The initial part of the trail is handicap accessible.
A ranger guided hike was just heading out into the more remote part of this trail, but we stopped at the end of the walkway this time.
There is a trail out there, believe it or not. Hikers must pay attention to the metal posts in the rock and other markers that are used. They also should wear proper footwear and carry an adequate amount of water for the conditions. I’ll probably comment on it again in later posts, but it is absolutely amazing the number of people we see a mile or two away from the trailhead without water and wearing flip-flops.
After Door Trail, we took another short trail from the same parking area and then headed further into the park. A short while later, we saw more bighorn sheep near where we had seen them the day before.
