More from South Dakota’s Badlands National Park

On May 31, 2017, I took over 600 photographs at South Dakota’s Badlands National Park. I showed several of them that year and others on the one-year anniversary. Now here are six more pictures of that scenic place.

© 2019 Steven Schwartzman

Badlands National Park

A year ago today we spent some scenic hours at Badlands National Park in South Dakota. After returning to Austin last year, I showed you maybe half a dozen of the more than 600 pictures I took. Here are five more.

© 2018 Steven Schwartzman

Crazy Horse

When we visited the far-from-ever-being-completed memorial to Crazy Horse in South Dakota’s Black Hills on June 2nd, the dramatic clouds caught my attention as much as anything else, and probably even more. The “opening quotation mark” above the blue hole in the clouds is curious, isn’t it?

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

The colorful Badlands

Okay, so I’ve been holding out on you when it comes to the best color I saw in the Badlands of South Dakota on May 31st.

Well-travelled Austin photographer Rick Capozza explained the colors to me: “White layers are volcanic ash or tuff as they call it in Big Bend. Tan and gray are sand and gravel. Red and orange are iron oxide deposits, primarily ferric oxide. Purple shale colors represent manganese deposits and yellow layers are ferrous sulfate.”

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Two henges

I didn’t see it then and there, which was June 2nd in Custer State Park in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Now, back in Austin almost two months later, this ring of trees near boulders strikes me as Pinehenge. And maybe I’m a bit unhinged, but when it comes to the more contrasty view below from Mt. Rushmore three days earlier that also included pine trees and boulders, I’m inclined to call it Shadowscragglehenge.

Now surely, I thought to myself, that’s a unique name. And guess what? Google the Omniscient agrees:

Your search – Shadowscragglehenge – did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

Make sure all words are spelled correctly.

Try different keywords.

Try more general keywords.

Hooray for uniquity!

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

Spearfish Canyon

Heading back to Rapid City from Devil’s Tower on the afternoon of June 1st, we turned off Interstate 90 and followed the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway into the Black Hills. How about those clouds above the cliffs? And how about Bridal Veil Falls along the same route?

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman

More from the Badlands

You didn’t think I’d go to South Dakota’s Badlands, spend seven hours there on May 31st, and dedicate only one post to it, did you? Of course not.

© 2017 Steven Schwartzman