On our way home from South Dakota, we drove through Badlands National Park. It was a short detour off I-90, and from the exit where we got off the freeway to where we got back on was 20 miles on the Interstate, and only about 36 via the loop through the park. However, it took at least an hour longer because of all the stops we made to take pictures, and how slow we drove to see everything.
I chose a few pictures to try and show the variety of rock formations we saw in the park. The day we drove through was pretty hazy and the bright colors in the rock are not as easy to distinguish as I had hoped. But what is really amazing is the fact that you are driving across a prairie that looks like great farmland, and then you just come upon this crazy area full of these deep canyons and gorges and cliffs. Man, I would have hated to be a pioneer and walking along thinking it was all right and then see this!
There were so many varieties of prairie grass, and they added color to the landscape along with the rock formations.
Some of the rock formations were sharp and pointy and tall, and some of them were sloped and rounded like the ones above. These had layers of bright yellow rock then the red and on top they were white. It almost looked liked layers of ice cream.
Even in the deep canyon areas, you could look out and there were areas that looked like a piece of the prairie had just dropped into the middle of the rocks.
It was really something to see, and I would love to go back at a time when I had more time to explore; get out of the car and do a little hiking, and see more of the park than just what you can see from the road.
1 comment:
It's beautiful! I don't think I have ever seen prairie grass like that with rock formations, certainly not in southern Utah. It reminds me of The Lion King where the hyena's live. Amazing, I wish the colors were showing through better. I bet it was breathtaking!
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