Day 8 – Badlands

We woke up to winds starting to pick up. According to the forecast the winds were going to be sustained around 35km/hr with 48km/hr gusts. The winds were definitely weaker than last night, so we must have had close to 80km/hr or higher gusts of wind. We decided we were not going to risk leaving our tent up, and even though it was the first campground we had booked back to back nights at, we had to take the tent down and put it back up later when the winds were going to be forecasted to die down around 7PM. It was too windy to cook in our exposed campground so we packed up the tent and headed to our trusty shelter where we had a quick breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate.

We then headed to the visitor centre, where the kids joined the junior ranger program and learned about the wildlife in the park. We then went to the fossil lab where we could observe live fossil work happening. It was incredible to see fossils of large animals and of the ancient sea mammal of Mosasaur.

After the visitor centre we drove out to do some hikes in the badlands. Initially we were going to avoid mid day hikes as it was going to be too hot in the sun, but with the unusual storm it was cloudy with a high of about 22. With the wind it was the perfect hiking weather. The badlands is apparently one of the few parks where visitors can climb any of the hills. The kids had a great time exploring, although some sections were a little muddy from the heavy rains the night before. 

By the end of the hike it became sunny, and we had a picnic lunch at a nearby identical design shelter we were using before to be out of the sun.

Afterwards we went on a few more hikes and could see some bison very far out in the distance. For our last hike of the day we did the fossil hike, and came across very small fossil pieces.

When we got back to our campsite it was still way too windy to set up camp. Although it was sunny we would get very brief periodic storm/rain where we would have to scramble to move out stuff back into the van. We decided to set up the tent after dinner and went back to our shelter for dinner. Right by the shelter was the park amphitheatre and hills the kids could climb. The view from the top of one of the hills was incredible, an almost complete 360 degree view of the whole area. After another brief spat of heavy rain in the sunshine,  the winds finally died down. We headed back to camp and were finally able to set up camp. There was little to no wind. This is how camping here was supposed to be like! We met a new visitor from Hamilton Ontario, and it was strange that the new visitors had any idea how bad the weather was the night before at the same campsite.

After a much less eventful shower, we headed over to the amphitheatre for their night program which was a presentation on fossils and what used to live here. 66 million years ago the badlands was the bottom of an ancient sea, so there are no dinosaur fossils here.  After the fossil presentation was the night sky presentation. They pointed out the Chinese space station flying by. After the presentation they turned off the lights, and everyone was in absolute awe of the number of stars and the full view of the Milky Way. I don’t ever recall being able to see the milky way so clear from one end to the other. We headed back to camp and enjoyed a peaceful, uneventful, and calm night in the tent.