Day 3: Griefs and Reliefs

Griefs

Do you know that feeling of being on a trip and something goes terribly wrong? Like going through customs in a foreign country only to realize that you have lost your passport, or going on a road trip to an event and on your arrival remember that you left the tickets taped to your front door (a spot where you thought you'd never forget them). I am well aware of this feeling after today. First of all, mummy bags are not meant for fat people unless you get it custom fit. I had this rude awakening last night as I spent my first night in my sleeping bag. I woke up no more than an hour after getting in my bag, struggling and feeling claustrophobic. My bag was so tight around my hips that I couldn't move at all, and I freaked out. In the below freezing prairie conditions I compromised on warmth by unzipping my bag halfway and throwing my thick winter coat and down vest over the empty holes. I was a bit cold through the night, but it was better than being completely immobilized. Knowing that we would be in colder conditions as the trip goes on, I decided that it would be wise to just go ahead and get another sleeping bag on our way to our new campsite. Reviews of said sleeping bag will be addressed in tomorrow's post.
The second thing to go wrong was likely one of the worst things that could happen at the beginning of a three week camping trip. After wearing my hiking boots on several occasions, I have come to the conclusion that the pain in my feet is not from breaking in my shoes but due to my shoes being a half size too small. After hiking Saddle Pass trail (a short 1/4 mile nearly verticle connector trail that involves climbing up the wall which seperates the upper and lower prairie) and a 1 3/4 mile segment of the Castle trail, my feet were dead and I wanted nothing more than to get out of my boots. This problem is not as easily solved as my previous issue. For now, I'm just going to wear my Chacos as much as possible, until I can figure out a way to loosen the toe box of my boots. Maybe I'll just stuff them with rocks overnight or something.

Reliefs

After breaking camp and our morning hike, we had some lunch and made a stop at the Yellow Mounds to look at a very well defined normal fault. I won't go into an extensive explanation of the origin of the mounds and how normal faults work, but the mounds were the shale beds below the Badland formations that were heavily modified by jungle vegetation, thereby giving the soil (which underwent lithification to become rock) a rich yellow hue. The area we looked at also showed an angular unconformity, a gap in the geologic record. This is basically the equivalent of taking a history book and ripping two chaptes from the middle of it. It's kind of tragic, but it looks really cool.

Yellow Mounds

Wildlife tally: Badlands - various birds, mule deer, cows, maybe some pronghorns from a distance, rattlesnakes (heard but did not see).

The best part of the day was the discovery of our new campsite. The group campsite at Stockade Lake campground within Custer State Park is phenomenal. With pit toilets, a large fire pit, placement right by the lake, hot showers a short walk away, and a covered area with some electric outlets, we are living the life of luxury. And the best part is, we will be at this site for the next four days! After setting up we even had sometime to relax and enjoy the scenery before dark. I chose to spend my leisure time reading in my hammock overlooking the lake and a large rock outcrop. I don't know if it can get much better than this.

View of Stockade Lake and Outcrop from my hammock spot

Extra-ordinary Observations
1. Geology is a vastly underappreciated science
2. Good shoes can make or break your experience on a hike
3. The urge to see wildlife can spur people to do really idiotic things, like wanting to use really long sticks to comb through tall prairie grass to find rattlers.
4. A serene environment can fix even the sorest of feet.
5. We have a pet at our new campsite, he/she is a groundhog that we have dubbed Herb.

Prime location of my tent :)

Day 2: Beautiful Exposure

Barren and lonely. That was my first impression of the the land in South Dakota. On the drive from Rapid City to the Badlands the land on either side of the highway was empty aside from a handful of dead scrubby trees scattered here and there, and long grasses. Lots and lots of grasses. I recalled overhearing a Midwesterner at Furman commenting on how they felt claustrophobic in Greenville, even when they were outside. This seemed really bizzare. But now having experienced the prairie, I can understand. The land just lays out before you and on a good day you can see for miles. The sky seems impossibly large and deep, more like an inverted ocean of blue and white that you would fall into forever of your feet were to slip from the Earth. To me, this beautiful spectacle was rather terrifying. Growing up in South Carolina, there have always been a wide variety of trees and shrubs around me wherever I go. Even cities are rife with trees and bushes and flowers, so the sudden open and seemingly emptyness made me feel very exposed and uneasy. But after a bit, I don't know exactly how long, I was able to bask in the beauty of this peaceful and serene land.

Upper Praire with a rare tree sighting

As we continued our drive, mysterious jagged peaks began to appear in the distance. These were the Badlands, the geologic evidence of a time when much of the western interior of the United States was covered with shallow seas and oceans. The rising of the Rocky Mountains and the Black Hills caused increased sedimentation in the shallow seas and eventually the seas drained leaving behind lush wetlands similar to the Everglades in Florida. Through the remainder of geologic time, the area alternated between times of dry and wet climate, which resulted in the beautiful banding present in the Badlands today. Amazingly the erosion that forms the magnificent buttes of the Badlands has only been occuring for the past 550,000 years or so, while the rocks within the formations date to between 30-75 million years old. The rapid erosioin rate (around the 1inch per year) will likely result in the consumption of the upper pairie within another 550,000-600,000 years. Geologically speaking, this is very quick.
I now apologize of the geology lecture, I just find it all very fascinating and I believe that knowing the history of the land makes the structures even more incredible.

Selfie with the Badlands

Drivng through the Badlands, you get the feeling that you are a giant wandering around mountains that are huge in size. The formations seem too grand and larger than life to exsist on structures that are no more than 500ft tall. But no matter their size, the unearthly landscape of the Badlands are definitely a spectacle to behold. It would be an awe-inspiring place to live, as long as you can stand up to the harsh winters, boiling summers, and incessant winds (which threatened to blow away a few of the smaller members of your group). For me, it's a magnificnt place to visit and spend some quality time, but I would rather not call it home.

Extra-ordinary observations
1. Badlands is the only National Park I have been to where you are not discouraged from climbing around on the formations. It's like a playground for geoscientist!
2. You never miss the solid granites of the Southeast, until you are clmbing on land that literally crumbles away beneath your feet.
3. That moment at dinner when you want sweet tea so badly that you consider ordering a tea and 5-10 sugar packets just so you can make your own.
4. Isolation and openness can be beautiful once you open yourself up to it.

View from campsite in Badlands National Park