This drive round the loop road is outstanding from the rock formations to the prairie views and the prairie dog towns, and fossil walk, and visitors centre.Plenty of stopping areas for outstanding views and picture opportunities.If you are within driving distance do not miss it, better than the Grand Canyon !!!If you are going in the winter , take some food ,the restaurant is closed !!!
My girlfriend and I drove through just before sunset. Speculator views with the Sun going down! It was bitter cold so we only got out of the car long enough for photos. Saw Big Horn sheep! Right next to the road! Awesome. We saw numerous Mule Deer and even a Silver Fox! Don't miss drive!
The Loop Road is the main attraction in the Badlands National Park and well worth the drive. There are 14 scenic overlooks on the Loop Road and several trailheads. Saw bighorn sheep, prairie dogs and fox!
Very beautiful park. The scenes awe-inspiring and memorable. Badlands national park is a must if you are passing through South Dakota and/or in the Black Hills area.
"This is torture!", screams my femme, referring to the tortured landscape of the Badlands. Twisted ridges with eroded buttes and pinnacles, snake down to ravines that are hauntingly. beautiful. We arrive at sunrise to capture the pink glow and returned in the evening when the sun brings out the warm amber tones of the rock and shadows dramatise the cliffs and crevices. The road through the Badlands leads to scenic lookouts, but sombre tones are birthed when we reach Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre of Lakota Indians, leaving a tragic scar on a beautiful land deeper than any other in the badlands. Great road surface and memories to savour.
This drive gives you a great overview of the entire park with plenty of options for stopping, photos, taking in the weird and wonderfulness of The Badlands
This is truly the road less traveled in the Badlands National Park. Although you get away from the rock formations that are the main attractions you get to witness the prairie life of South Dakota (bison, prairie dogs, and bighorn sheep). I highly recommend.
The Badlands are spectacular and I could look at it for days. I went at sunrise and again at sunset and it was amazing. Lots of wildlife except no prairie dogs even in the prairie dog town. I guess I was in their town too early in the day!Enjoy this wonderful park and take your time breathing in this stunning landscape.
"Maco Sica", "Land Bad" was the Lacota tribe's name for this area. And it truly is: bare, deserted, depressing, lonely, isolated, inhospitable, all of these and more. I went at 5:00 in the morning, with a bunch of photographers, to wait for the sunrise. Guess what: sun never came out, only the heartbreaking loneliness of the desert hills. Don't even think of going there planing to have cell service: there is none. It is also very dangerous to get lost: nobody will even find you. You won't be able to find your way either, there are no repair points along the way, it's all a long depressing dreadful nothingness. Stay away from it
The drive through the Badlands gives you amazing and unreal views. The vastness and formation of the landscape looks like another world. As we visited in October there was hardly another car on the road which meant that we could take as much time as we wanted to view the scenery and added to the sense of wilderness. The down side of visiting in October was that there was nowhere open that served food, so if you visit in winter plan you meals away from the park.