A Lonely Stretch of Highway 44 in Badlands National Park

Yellow center line marks Highway 44 stretching through Badlands National Park's eroded buttes and grasslands, South Dakota.
Yellow center line marks Highway 44 stretching through Badlands National Park's eroded buttes and grasslands, South Dakota.

Highway 44 runs along the southern edge of Badlands National Park, linking the town of Interior to Rapid City and serving as an alternate route to the more heavily traveled Badlands Loop Road (Highway 240). The park itself was designated in 1978, though the area had been protected as a national monument since 1939. Badlands National Park spans roughly 244,000 acres of mixed-grass prairie and eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires formed by deposits laid down between 69 and 75 million years ago. Erosion continues to reshape the formations at a rate of about an inch per year, among the fastest in the world.

Taken July 2019

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South Dakota
Badlands, Black Hills, and Custer State Park across multiple trips
26 photos
Badlands National Park
Roads, trails, campsites, and grasslands across the North and South Units of Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota
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