Badlands National Park

While not in the Black Hills, many visitors plan a stop to the Badlands into their itinerary. Located about an hour's drive from the eastern edge of the Black Hills, Badlands National Park is one of the most visually stunning and geologically unique landscapes in the United States. A maze of buttes, canyons, pinnacles, and spires stretches across 244,000 acres, and the park is one of the world's richest fossil beds with skeletons of three-toed horses, ancient rhinos, and saber-toothed cats preserved in layers of colorful sediment. Wildlife abounds throughout — bison, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, and deer can often be spotted while hiking, camping, or driving the Badlands Loop Road. The park also protects the largest undisturbed mixed-grass prairie in the United States, and is one of the sites where the critically endangered black-footed ferret was reintroduced to the wild. The Fossil Exhibit Trail is a quarter-mile accessible boardwalk that steps back in time, while the Ben Reifel Visitor Center features a working fossil preparation lab and ranger programs.