Fossil Exhibit Trail in Badlands National Park

Welcome to another Travel Tuesday! We’re still in South Dakota and headed off this time to the Fossil Exhibit Trail in Badlands National Park!

This was one of the views we saw when we were headed off to check out the Fossil Exhibit Trail!

Fossil Exhibit Trail in Badlands National Park

Distance: 0.4 miles out + back
Elevation: 13 feet
Difficulty: Easy
Admission: $25 for 1 private vehicle (good for 7 days); free with annual park pass ($80)
Parking: Included with admission fee
Trailhead Address: SD-240, Wall, SD 57790

The trail is super easy to walk and is also a fully ADA-accessible boardwalk, wide enough for strollers and wheelchairs. It features a number of different fossil replicas and exhibits of extinct creatures.

The trail is located at the southeastern part of the park (a few miles from the Ben Reifel Visitor Center) and there’s a small shelter at the trailhead where you can check out an interactive exhibit detailing the history of the fossils and the area.

Make sure you stay on the boardwalk because so you don’t destroy the landscape (+ there are also rattlesnakes in this park)!

I’m including some photos from our stops along the scenic drive we did through the park too!

We had a fun time exploring and even got to go back for the Night Sky program, where we learned about the history of homesteading and also got to see the Milky Way(!), Saturn, Jupiter, Arborio, Sagittarius, Leo, Scorpio, the Summer Triangle, Cassiopeia, the North Star, Arcturus, Vega, Draco, the international space station, and a few shooting stars!

• Were you interested in dinosaurs/fossils when you were little?
• Have you ever gone stargazing? Have you seen the Milky Way?