The Beginning

So I was back in my hometown (can I call it that?) of Atlanta for what was supposed to be a few weeks in late August. I returned to stay with my parents (and save money) while I prepared for a trip to South America — a trip I had been lusting over for several months. While I was home and catching up with old friends, one of them, Jack, sprung the idea of going on a road trip for several weeks with me and our mutual friend, Alex. Jack had just taken the MCAT earlier that day after spending the entire summer preparing for it and was looking for a way to unwind until he figured out what his next move was. We tried to recruit a couple of our other buddies but it turned out that we were the only ones so obligation-free that we could up and travel the country for a few weeks without worry. I honestly did my best to convince my friends to travel for longer (2 months would have been nice) but they both had reasons to be home much sooner than that. We ended up deciding to travel from September 2nd-26th giving us 3 & 1/2 on the road. This was going to delay my trip to South America, but what did I care: I had also been dreaming about a getting to see and experience more of my own country since returning from Asia earlier this year. I met so many other travelers (mostly from Australia and England) who had seen more of my own country than I had. I knew I had to right this wrong but was reluctant to do that much driving on my own. When this opportunity to explore some previously unseen parts of the US with two good friends from high school presented itself, well, I jumped.

Badlands National Park

We had originally planned, after spending the night in Pittsfield, Illinois, a town about a hour outside of St Louis with a population less than 5,000 to drive straight to Boulder, Colorado where we would stay with some friends of my car mates. Our reason for making Pittsfield our first stop: Jack’s grandma lives there and we figured it would be a nice place to break up our 21+ hour drive from Atlanta to Boulder. She welcomed us and bought us way too much food at what appeared to be the only restaurant in town. She seemed to know everyone in the restaurant; I can’t remember the last time I was in a place with such a good small-town vibe. It was a nice experience and it wasn’t bad getting a shower and bed for the night. Jack’s cousin Alex was also staying at their Grandma’s place and when he heard our plan to drive I-70 through Kansas to Denver and on to Boulder he became very vocal. That drive, he said, is about as boring of a drive as you can do in the United States, and we should instead head north to South Dakota taking in the Badlands along the way. Given that we would be staying in Boulder 2 nights even if we delayed and stayed in North Dakota one night, we obliged. After waking up at 5 am and downing a few cups of coffee we hit the road.

After the sun rose, we could see that the drive to the Badlands covered some pretty boring terrain. Not that I-70 through Kansas would have been any better. We drove west, crossed a time zone, and arrived at the Badlands a little before Sunset.

Upon arrival we headed to the visitor center to get some information about campsites. The ranger told us that no backcountry permits were required and that we could set up camp literally anywhere in the park as long as we were at least 1 mile off the road and out of sight. We decided after a bit of debate to bring just our sleeping bags, pads, a portable stove, and some food. The only tent we had (loaned by my parents) was not a backpacking tent and was a pretty big pain to lug around.

We started at the trailhead to the Notch Trail, but didn’t exactly stay on the trail. The land formations were so enticing to climb on that we more or less just wandered around climbing up and down everything we could. We wanted to get up to a cool vantage point to watch the sunset but the topography made that rather difficult. The Badlands are basically a bunch of little mud mountains, not exactly conducive to climbing. Many of thet foot and handholds disintegrated into nothingness.

After giving up on reaching the top of any of these mud mountains we settled down to cook some delicious dinner (SpaghettiOs and Campbell’s Soup).

According to all forecasts, there wasn’t supposed to be any rain the night we spent out there, which is partly why we opted not to bring the tent. Nonetheless we could see miles across the North Dakota plains to several distant thunderstorms. It was really cool watching the lightning strikes hit earth every couple of minutes. Rain did not end up being a problem that night but the weather definitely affected us. As we lay down to sleep underneath the clouds, the wind started to pick up. I don’t think I ended up sleeping for more than about 20 minutes; sometime after 12 am the wind had gotten so bad that dirt was blowing inside my sleeping bag and into my eyes, mouth, and nose. The wind was so violent that it was actually blowing rocks off of the spires towering above us — rocks that were landing on top of us. We all decided at this point that we should gather our gear and head back to the car. This time we decided to follow thetrail back to the car. Thank God for the reflectors placed every so often; without them, we probably would not have made it back without falling off a cliff. We had to navigate a wooden ladder strapped to the side of a cliff, which was a little unnerving. We all survived with only minor injuries.

After getting back to the car, we decided to assess our options. We drove around the park a little bit to see if we could find a spot where the wind was a little calmer and we could pitch our tent. We looked in vain. We ended up sleeping in the car on the side of the road for about 4 hours. When I woke up I had 3 notifications on my phone warning of a severe wind advisory. Thanks Cortana! — That would’ve been a bit more useful about 12 hours earlier. We drove out along the scenic Badlands Loop Road towards Mount Rushmore as the sun rose.