A Few Days in the Black Hills and Badlands.
Many people see the Badlands in July or August, the busiest months with over 200,000 visits each. Most arrive in the middle of the day. Beige scenery, temps in the 90s, often past 100, heat coming off the rocks in waves, everybody back in the car within twenty minutes.
I went in June, and it was green.
The low ground between those eroded formations fills in with grass, the draws run thick with cottonwood, and the whole basin turns a startling, improbable green that the pink and gold rock sits in like islands. It lasts a few weeks. By later in the summer it has gone to gold, which is beautiful in a completely different way.
I spent a few days earlier this summer driving between Badlands N.P., Custer State Park and Spearfish Canyon. Here is what I found, and where to stand if you go.
When is the best time to visit Badlands National Park? Early June, and go in the evening. The green season runs roughly late May through the end of June depending on spring rainfall, and evening light does something to the formations that midday light flattens completely.
This is the single most useful thing I can tell you about the place. At noon the Badlands are grey and flat — the rock loses its banding, the shadows collapse, and photographs come out looking like a quarry. Come back just before sunset and the same view turns gold and pink, the grass in the low ground lights up, and the whole formation gains depth it simply does not have in the middle of the day.
The Badlands Loop Road is the obvious route and it is obvious for good reason. But most visitors drive it once, in the middle of the day, and leave. If you can, spend an evening here and experience the park in a different light.
What are the Yellow Mounds, and are they worth stopping for? Yes, and the color is not what most people assume.
If you have driven the Badlands Loop, you passed a stretch where the rock suddenly goes yellow, and you probably remember it. It looks like mineral staining. It is not. That yellow is fossil soil. Millions of years ago this was a shallow inland sea. When it drained, the exposed seabed sat long enough to weather into a deep yellow subtropical soil, and then got buried and preserved. The purple and grey bands above it are Pierre Shale — the old seabed itself. You are looking at the boundary between one geological era and the next, sitting in the open, roadside.
Where are the bison, and when are the calves born? Two answers, because there are two herds.
Custer State Park runs roughly 1,400 bison across 71,000 acres, and the Wildlife Loop Road is where you will find them. Go early in the morning or later in the evening. They are up and moving by six a.m. but asleep in the shade in mid-day.
Calves are born in April and May. They come out bright orange — referred to as “red dogs,” — and after a few months they have started turning brown and growing the shoulder hump of an adult bison.
The Badlands herd is different, and many visitors miss it. In 1963, 50 bison were transported from Theodore Roosevelt National Park and reintroduced to the Badlands. Today, this herd of over 1,000 animals is out on the open mixed-grass prairie behind the formations — which is most of the park by area and almost none of it by photograph. Standing on that prairie at sunset with a bison a hundred yards off is about as close as you can get to seeing the Great Plains as they actually were.
Is Sylvan Lake worth the crowds? Yes, and there is a reason everybody stops there. Sylvan Lake is the postcard shot of Custer State Park — granite fins coming straight out of the water, small pines growing out of cracks in the rock, a shore trail that takes about half an hour if you dawdle.
What surprises most people is that it is artificial. Someone dammed Sunday Gulch in 1891 and the water backed up into the existing rock formations, which is exactly why it looks like nothing else in the Hills. It is also the trailhead for Black Elk Peak — the highest natural point in South Dakota at 7,244′ .
Go early or late if you want it quiet. Mid-afternoon in summer, the parking lot is full.7
Where is Spearfish Canyon, and is it worth the drive from Custer? About 90 minutes away, in the northern Black Hills, and yes — it’s a deep, narrow gorge celebrated for its dramatic cliff walls, vibrant foliage, and waterfalls.
Spearfish Canyon cuts about a thousand feet down through limestone, and its narrow canyon walls are among the most spectacular scenery in the Black Hills. The canyon is home to three waterfalls – Bridal Veil Falls, Roughlock Falls, and Spearfish Falls. Of the three, I was most impressed with Spearfish Falls – slightly off the beaten path, but well worth the walk.
Plenty of people do the Rushmore-and-Custer Black Hills loop and never make the drive north at all. They’re definitely missing out.
Is Mount Rushmore worth photographing? Yes — but the weather makes all the difference.
It’s probably the most photographed thing in South Dakota, and under a clear blue sky it’s hard to add much to the millions of frames already out there. I wasn’t sure I’d shoot it at all. Then some clouds rolled in and mixed with the evening light.
Under a dark sky the granite shifts from warm and postcard-familiar to something quieter and more imposing — four enormous faces carved into a mountain, holding steady while the weather moves in around them. Borglum and his crew worked that face from 1927 to 1941, much of it with dynamite. Each head stands about sixty feet tall.
Most visitors catch it in flat midday light. If you can time your visit for changing weather — early morning, late afternoon, or a storm rolling through — you’ll see a very different monument.
Prints from this trip
Every image above is available as a fine art print — archival paper, canvas, metal or acrylic, ready to hang, and it ships in about a week.
Browse the newest work → Latest Images
If you have been to any of these places and want help working out what size fits a particular wall, just get in touch — send a photo of the space and I will tell you what works.
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