Wild Sunflowers Along Sheep Mountain Road in the Badlands

Sheep Mountain Road climbs through the South Unit of Badlands National Park, also known as the Stronghold Unit, which the National Park Service co-manages with the Oglala Sioux Tribe on land within the Pine Ridge Reservation. The park itself spans roughly 244,000 acres of eroded buttes, pinnacles, and prairie grassland, much of it protected since 1978. Common sunflowers, native to the Great Plains, spread along roadsides and disturbed ground throughout the park each summer, their bloom typically peaking from July into early fall. The gravel route here provides access to some of the more remote overlooks in the South Unit, away from the paved Badlands Loop Road that draws most park visitors.

Taken July 2017