South Dakota, Part 6 - A Thwarted Sunrise and Badlands Rock Creatures [240516]

Thursday was another "early morning", since we set our alarms for 4:30 a.m. in order to try to catch the sunrise on the Badlands (at 5:20).

We decided the Door Trail had some features that should be interestingly lit during sunrise - but unfortunately the skies weren't completely clear that morning and clouds blocked the vital early morning red rays during most of the crucial time, making the time-lapse not very interesting.

By 6:30 Christine had toddled back to bed and it was clear the lighting wasn't going to get any more interesting, so Tom took one last video sweep and went to see what the rest of the area looked like in the morning light.

Along the way, he came across this cute little bunny that was out to find breakfast before all the crazy tourists showed up for the day.

This canyon had dozens of swallows darting through it going to/from their nests in the rocks. Tom took several videos of it, but the swallows aren't visible when the videos are viewed on our laptop. We're not sure whether they're just too small to see at 1080p, or whether the phone filtered them out as "noise" altogether. We'll have to remember to check the original 4k video when we get home in 10 months and have access to a true 4k monitor (which we are not carrying in the T42 😉).

We didn't have a good photo of what the "window" at the end of the Window Trail looked like for the previous blog post, so here's one now, as well as the morning view through that window.

Having caught something of a "second wind", Tom decided to explore the canyon to the right of the Window Trail. (Unlike practically every other national park we've visited, Badlands is unique in that it has an "Open Hike Policy" meaning that you're are allowed to hike off-trail.)

Among the more interesting rock formations seen was this one, with a large mummy's head on top, and a hollow-shell portion below with a slit in it - almost like a natural trash can (thankfully, no one has thought to use it as one - yet).

And then there was this porthole in one of the rock walls.

By now it was 8:30, and Tom returned to the T42 for a nap as well 😴.

Everyone was up again by 10 a.m., and after breakfast we walked the side canyon again together, and then headed out on the Castle Trail / Medicine Root Trail loop across the street. The Castle Trail was by far the more interesting of the two, climbing through and then staying reasonably close to the rock formations for most of the hike.

Along the way, a friendly seal pointed the correct way down the path.

The old badger licked his lips as we passed by, but left us alone.

Tom regretted letting Christine talk him out of buying a plush bison at the Custer SP gift shop, since having one here would have been handy for re-creating the iconic opening scene from The Lion King. Of course, it also would've involved getting Christine to climb up onto this mini-Pride-Rock (which is larger than it looks in this photo) with said plush bison...

The wise old turtle cautioned "be careful not to step backwards when taking selfies on the edge of canyons!"

Going off-trail a bit let us look through the rocks and over the edge of the butte that the trail goes across the top of.

A man riding McGruff, the Crime Dog, appeared to have gotten himself stranded on top of this rock.

The Medicine Root Trail was far less interesting, returning along the far side of the mixed-grass prairie - so you saw essentially the same scenery, but from farther away. The only unique view we got was this, 3/4 of the way back to the start of the trail.

We were glad when we finally got back to our starting point. The temperature had hit 83 degrees pretty early on, and there was no shade anywhere on the trail. The loop is advertised as being 6.6 miles long, but with all our side-trips (some intentional and some not; the trail is "marked" by a series of vertical yardsticks stuck in the ground every so often, but which are often times very difficult to find. Either the trail builders had a sick sense of humor or the yardsticks rotated over time on their own, because several times it was the 1/8" edge of the stick facing you as you approached instead of the 2" wide edge) we ended up hiking 8.13 miles over the course of over 4 hours. We were pleasantly surprised when we got back to find a granite Travato parked in front of the T42. The owner came back while we were eating lunch, and we had the chance to chat for a bit.

It rained in the early evening, making for some pretty double rainbows again. Luckily it didn't rain for very long, so it didn't ruin our outdoor cooking plans for the evening.