Badlands National Park: Door Trail (Blog Hike #77)

Trail: Door Trail

Hike Location: Badlands National Park

Geographic Location: northeast of Interior, SD (43.76335, -101.92679)

Length: 0.9 miles

Difficulty: 1/10 (Easy)

Date Hiked: September 2000

Overview: A short, easy hike over bare rock through some impressive rock formations.

Park Information: http://www.nps.gov/badl/index.htm

Hike Route Map: https://www.mappedometer.com/?maproute=717456
Photo Highlight:

Directions to the trailhead: Take I-90 to SR 240 (exit 131).  Exit and go south on SR 240, entering Badlands National Park.  The signed parking area for the Door Trail is located 8 miles south of I-90.

The hike: Badlands National Park is a beautiful and remarkable national treasure drawing visitors from the entire world.  The center of the park is the Badlands Wall, a 60-mile long 150 foot high vertical rock mountain that separates the White River Valley from the higher plains.  The wall is virtually impassible except at a few points called passes. 

One of these passes, Cedar Pass, lies 1.5 miles south of the Door trailhead, the starting point of 4 hiking trails.  The Door is a small opening in the Badlands Wall that leads into one of the most rugged, desolate section of the Badlands and yields nice views of the White River Valley.  The Door Trail takes you through that opening and leads across the Badlands to an overlook at trail's end.

The trail begins at a sign on the north side of the blacktop trailhead parking area.  A metal "boardwalk" leads through the Door and comes to a set of steps that leads down onto the rock to the right.  Descend the steps to arrive at a trail-guide dispenser.  The guide describes nine numbered yellow posts along the trail and gives information about your surroundings. 

Boardwalk at beginning of Door Trail

            The trail continues by passing left of a red clay outcropping to arrive at post #l.  The Badlands have their origins in the Black Hills to the west.  27 million years ago, an upsurge of magma lifted the Black Hills above the level of the surrounding Great Plains.  Soft ash deposits were eroded from the Black Hills by wind only to be redeposited in today’s Badlands to the east.  The ash appears today as the white rock capping many of the Badlands formations.  The soft red claystone (crumbles in your hands) native to the area appears as a streak underneath the white ash.  Both types of rock are soft and easily eroded. 

What little water that exists in the Badlands is a milky white because rainfall mixes with the soft white ash.  One early homesteader noted that the water was too thick to drink and too thin to plow.  Indeed, the landscape changes with every rainfall.  Fortunately, the Badlands receive less than 16 inches of precipitation per year on average, so the Badlands will not disappear in the near future.

Door Trail crossing bare rock

            On bare white rock all the way, the treadway tends to blend in and become difficult to follow.  I found that the easiest way to find the trail was to walk from post-to-post.  Standing at post #1, scan for post #2 (some 50 yards away) and walk toward it.  If you cannot see the next post from where you are standing, walk in the general direction of east, making sure not to get too close to the edge of a cliff, which can give-way easily, sending you tumbling into the ravine. 

View at end of Door Trail

            There are few plants along the trail except for a little sagebrush, prairie grass, and prairiewort.  Wildlife is also rare.  On my hike, I saw a couple of larks, a chipmunk, and a pair of deer.  Upon reaching post #8, pass through a small opening in the clay/ash rock to arrive at the overlook of the White River Valley.  The canyons that have been on either side of the trail converge here at the trail's end.  After observing the valley and the Badlands Wall to the right, retrace your steps back to the trailhead to complete the hike.