45 days and 45 nights, updated :)

Badlands National Park.

Pictures do not do this place justice.

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We dry camped there for a few days at “the wall”. Big horn sheep would come up out of the bottoms every evening and eat around the camper. The place blows my mind because the ground is not stable. The whole area is eating itself. Great thread!
 
Great pics! I was able to hit the Custer Wildlife Trail last November when I was working up there. I had the place to myself and there was snow in the ground. Of course I had to see Rushmore, Crazyhorse, and a few recommended highways. The scenery is breath taking and nope, pics don't do it justice.
 
thebrotherinlaw said:
We dry camped there for a few days at “the wall”. Big horn sheep would come up out of the bottoms every evening and eat around the camper. The place blows my mind because the ground is not stable. The whole area is eating itself. Great thread!
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Yep. The roads there are in bad shape coming in and going up through some of the slopes, from what looks like the ground coming out from underneath the roads. And it’s even crazier that while just driving on the top in the grasslands, in an instant we instantly came across huge drop offs within feet of the road. And the ground just continues to erode away.

we did the scenic byway through the park and did a couple of the short hikes, then took a left on dirt road 590, which was about 25 miles of riding the backcountry along the cliff looking down into the valley.
Spectacular.
 
We had a day between SD and Yellowstone. Plus it was a 10 hour drive.

so we detoured to Devils Tower for a few hours. What a cool geological feature. Really, everything we are seeing are cool geological features, but Devils Tower takes the cake so far.

oh, and these 2 lane highways in the country that are 70mph speed limits are crazy.

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kaiser715 said:
I switched to a full full brim after my first trip out west. A few weeks outside every day with a ball cap and my ears were burnt up.
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Yep. And the neck too!

this hat replaced an older, heavier one that I loved. It’s nice for the shade and lets the wind through as well. Was nice while hiking up to Devils Tower at 1pm in 95* heat and direct sunlight! Works awesome on the water too.
 
rockcity said:
Yep. And the neck too!

this hat replaced an older, heavier one that I loved. It’s nice for the shade and lets the wind through as well. Was nice while hiking up to Devils Tower at 1pm in 95* heat and direct sunlight! Works awesome on the water too.
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Yup. Straw hats are the best. If it gets too hot, dunk it in water.
 
More pics from Yellowstone

not pictured was a lot of the wildlife we saw, just roaming beside the road. Bison, deer, elk, moose, bear, etc. and we went swimming in Yellowstone River. No pics of me swimming, no need to make the ladies (and most men) moist. :D

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Pokémon for men...
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golden Gate
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Mammoth Springs
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Elk at visitor center at Mammoth Springs Basin

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LeDuke Spring and picnic area, just a few miles north of the park in Custer Gallatin National Forest.
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The falls at Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. North Rim.
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Natural Bridge just south of Bridge Bay on Yellowstone Lake
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Be sure to check out Uncle Toms trail. Awesome view of the lower falls from down in the canyon. I just looked it up and it seems they may or may not be closed depending on what you read. My wife and I had been married less than a week when I talked her into heading down the trail (honeymooned in Glacier and Yellowstone). I greatly underestimated her fear of heights... We got to the bottom of the trail when she locked up. Took what felt like 2hrs to talk her back to the top, one step at the time :lol:
 
awheelterd said:
Be sure to check out Uncle Toms trail. Awesome view of the lower falls from down in the canyon. I just looked it up and it seems they may or may not be closed depending on what you read. My wife and I had been married less than a week when I talked her into heading down the trail (honeymooned in Glacier and Yellowstone). I greatly underestimated her fear of heights... We got to the bottom of the trail when she locked up. Took what felt like 2hrs to talk her back to the top, one step at the time :lol:
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If that is the trail that goes to the bottom of the falls, then it’s closed due to most of erosion the past couple years.
 
rockcity said:
If that is the trail that goes to the bottom of the falls, then it’s closed due to most of erosion the past couple years.
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It's a trail with several hundred steel stairs anchored into the rockface down into the canyon.

Looks like it is in fact closed. That's a real bummer. Go check it out anyway. Maybe no one will be guarding it and you can run down for a quick look :lol:

Uncle Tom's Trail [CLOSED]
 
Yeah. It was closed.

they are doing a lot of construction as well. Some roads are closed too.

also, the virus seems to have a lot of other things closed (not sure why given the lack of social distancing elsewhere).
 
It's been a minute but I did 17 days out west. Went south to Vegas to Denver to Yellowstone to south Dakota to St Louis and back home through Kentucky down. 22 states, like ten national parks, superbike race at pikes peak, .......6321 miles. I could help some if interested. Just message me and we could talk on the phone if needed. It helps to know what to skip but also know what I wish I had done. One thing for sure to skip is the four corners. It's basically an Indian flea market for Indian artifacts that are made in China.
 
lockedup5 said:
Don't skip crazyhorse like I did for whatever reason. I've been told it's even better than mt Rushmore. And seems like it's only may ten miles apart. I skipped stergis to and wish I'd went there.
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We went to Crazy Horse. There and Rushmore are equally good in different ways. Crazy Horse is a great memorial and has some good museum type stuff where Rushmore doesn’t have as much. But the magnitude of what is Rushmore and the short time it took to do it is awesome. Crazy Horse will be the largest stone sculpture in the world, one day.

I like that there are some hiking trails at Rushmore and you can get somewhat close, for no additional $. At Crazy Horse, you can get close, at the tune of $125/person, when they are doing the close up tours.


We drove through Sturgis and skipped Deadwood. Gotta leave something for next time. :)
 
I'm convinced you and anyone else who has planned and accomplished such a travel path should sell the info.


This is truly a badass experience.
 
No pics from today. We did a guided zip line course and whitewater rafting. So no phone with us to take pics. Zip line was great as was the rafting. But right before rafting, it started raining and didn’t let up. Couple that with 46* air temp and 42* water temps, and we were some cold ass rafters. But everyone pushed through and did awesome.

tomorrow we pack up from Yellowstone and head to Grand Tetons. We drive through the park, so we will stop and take a couple bike rides on some trails and see if we can see a few more things before we have to leave. Sure wish we didn’t have to leave but it’s time to check out the Tetons. We have a private guided wildlife tour of the Tetons on the 30th to hopefully check out some great scenery and wildlife. Hopefully see bear 399 and her cubs.
 
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