July 9, 2020 —
How do you cope with an appendectomy? For most people, it involves sleeping in their bed and taking it easy for several days while the worst of the pain subsides. For Maria Stiens, it involved fighting the pain and exhaustion to walk around the national park that she drove 16 hours to see.
This is not an exaggeration. In July of 2020 – not long after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic – Maria & I loaded up my car with our road trip essentials and drove out to South Dakota. After a jam-packed first day in Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park, Maria woke up in the middle of the night with shooting pain coming from her appendix. Thankfully, the hospital was only a few minutes from our motel in Rapid City, so I drove her there and anxiously awaited her discharge from the surgery she needed to remove her appendix.
After a day of rest and recovery, Maria decided that we needed to make the most of this trip, and she agreed to trek out to Badlands National Park on the third day, standing tall against the pain of the surgery. As I’ll describe later, it turned out Badlands is the perfect park to visit when your passenger can barely walk.
Plan your trip to Badlands National Park
Things to Do Near Badlands
We started the day with a couple of quick stops. First, we swung by the touristy town of Wall, located north of the park. Among other things, the town is famous for the store Wall Drug, which sells souvenirs, food, drinks, and – most importantly – donuts. While we avoided the store’s interior due to South Dakota’s general disdain for facemasks amid the early days of the pandemic, we popped into a couple of open-air shops and took some photos.
After Wall, we made a short drive to visit Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, which was only partially open thanks to the pandemic. We were able to pop into the visitor center and view the Delta-09 missile silo, which contains a disarmed nuclear missile that visitors can view directly through glass. Maria fought the pain from her surgery everywhere we went, wincing every time we hit a bump in the road and only able to stand out in the summer heat for a few minutes at a time.
To the Badlands…
Finally, we made our way to the Northeast Entrance of Badlands National Park. The entrance was a straight shot south across the interstate from the Minuteman Missile visitor center – the straight road allowed us to watch the park’s iconic buttes and pinnacles grow larger and larger as we approached. After showing the ranger at the entrance station our park pass, the ground almost immediately dropped off on the left side of the road, revealing our first up-close look at the beautiful rocky formations that cover the park. Of course, I pulled over, and we wandered onto a boardwalk for a better look.
As we drove further into the park, we were greeted by increasingly beautiful views of the park’s geography. In some areas – like the Big Badlands Overlook – the buttes and pinnacles stretched into the distance below ground-level, forming colorful ravines and winding canyons. In other areas, they rose high above our heads, resembling mountains whose sides had been cut open to reveal the many layers within that had taken millions of years to form. These geologic formations began forming through the process of erosion around 500,000 years ago, gradually revealing layers of stone that corresponded to different eras of the Earth’s history.
If you’re interested in reading more about the processes that formed the badlands found in the park and the history that they reveal, check out the National Park Service’s page on the subject.
Shaking Off the Surgery
Our next stop in the park was the Door and Window parking area. From there, I held Maria’s hand as she hobbled along the short boardwalk leading to the “Window,” a natural opening in the nearby Badlands Wall that provided a view of the geologic formations below. The quarter-mile flat hike is an excellent example of Badlands’ accessibility for those struggling to get around, like the recovering Maria.
After our stop at the Window, Maria returned to the air conditioned car for a nap. The amount of walking we’d done up until that point – only about a mile – would have been a cinch for Maria in her usual state. However, that mile felt more like a marathon for her in her state of recovery amid the 90+ degree weather. After dropping her off at the car, it was time for me to run up and down the trail I’d been itching to get my feet on: the Notch Trail.
The Notch Trail
The Notch Trail is one of the more popular at Badlands, and it’s easy to see why. The trail starts by meandering through some maze-like cutouts in the rock formations, eventually taking you to the feature the trail is known for: a ladder made out of logs. The ladder allows visitors to ascend up a steep hill with lesser chance of injury and lesser chance of accelerating erosion of the badland formations (though, thanks to the park’s Open Hike Policy, one can still choose to bypass the ladder on precarious terrain if it’s busy, which I did on the return hike).
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After reaching the top of the ladder, hikers meander through a wandering canyon using a loosely-defined trail, eventually making their way to an overlook of the White River Valley. While the view isn’t as grand or spectacular as end-of-hike vistas in Yosemite or Zion or the Smokies, it’s still an impressive reward for the short hike.
After completing the Notch Trail, I returned to the car and Maria & I made a couple of quick stops: first the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, then the Ben Reifel Visitor Center for our passport stamps and obligatory photo with a park sign, then the Saddle Pass Trail. The latter was another brief stop that Maria agreed to let me take while she indulged in another nap, and it was a stop that became the highlight of the trip for me.
The Saddle Pass Trail
The short and steep Saddle Pass Trail intersects with the Castle Trail, a 10-mile trail that runs through the heart of the park that Maria & I had planned to hike before our plans were derailed by her appendectomy. I figured it was a good compromise for me, to still see the Castle Trail while not taking too much time. The steep ascent of the Saddle Pass trail already made it a fun stop, and it was made even better by the bighorn sheep that greeted me up top at the trail intersection. It was quite surreal to stand silently among the prairie while the sheep walked around me, unbothered by my presence and munching on grass. While I’m sure the locals see them all the time, I – a Midwesterner – rarely did, so it was a cool moment for me that I desperately wished I could have shared with Maria.
Stops Along the Road
After my quick stop at the Saddle Pass trail, Maria and I slowly made our way down the Badlands Loop Road, heading towards the Pinnacles entrance (west side of the North Unit) where we would ultimately leave the park. During the remainder of the afternoon, we stopped at most of the overlooks and exhibits that we passed on the road, again discovering how accessible the park is from a vehicle. Our favorite stops were the west end of the Castle Trail, the Burns Basin Overlook, Yellow Mounds Overlook, and finally the Pinnacles Overlook.
The Pinnacles Overlook – our last stop in the park – was the place that brought my fondness for the park to its full fruition. From the overlook, Maria & I were able to gaze out for miles over the bizarre-looking rock formations that make Badlands National Park so famous. They looked beautiful in the afternoon sun. The way the light cast shadows across the prairie created an illusion that made the pinnacles look far larger than they were, making it difficult to judge just how far out we were looking.
As I stood next to Maria, remembering how she powered through the pain to make our day together possible, I smiled. I felt lucky in that moment to have her by my side, and especially felt blessed to have been so close to the medical attention she needed two nights ago. I don’t remember how long we spent there looking out at the park, but it was a beautiful moment nonetheless.
In Conclusion…
Even though we only spent an afternoon at Badlands National Park, it was one of the most fond afternoon of my recent memory. While Maria & I weren’t able to hike our hearts out and camp in the backcountry like I’d originally hoped, we still managed to have a wonderful day, and Maria was a trooper for sticking it out. Her pain persisted through the rest of the trip – during which we mostly stuck to our motel and my car – but she made the most of it for her and for me.
Badlands remains – in my opinion – one of the most underrated national parks. Many people don’t think of anything special when they think of South Dakota, but when you pair Badlands with the offerings of the nearby Black Hills, you realize that there is indeed plenty to do in and around the area. It’s a beautiful and surreal landscape, one that I recommend everyone visit. I also suggest that all of us pay attention to the issues that have plagued and still plague the park: encroachment by energy companies, the federal government’s inability to fairly address the Native American land rights issues, fossil theft, and climate change. Please pay attention to these issues and take action where you can, so that Badlands can have a safe, secure, and peaceful future to allow others to enjoy and honor its natural wonders.
— Paul
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