Saturday, May 02, 2009
Badlands 1 - The Views
BADLANDS! We've been anticipating this day for some time. The map outlines the "Loop Road" which we took. We began at the right of the map and crossed West until we went North to the town of Wall.
The badlands is H-U-G-E...The views are as varied as possible. This was a climb up to the top of the wall of the badlands.
A view across the Badlands shows all sorts of shapes and colors. The view also changes with the movement of the sun across the sky.
The badlands are actually many, many layers of dirt, clay, fossils, and many of volcanic dust. You can view in the picture below right the colors of the layers. The dust came from volcano activity West of the area which was a shallow lake millions of years ago. About 500,000 years ago the motion of water and wind began to cut into the soft rock. It is estimated the entire place will be leveled in another 500,000 years. I guess we'll never have to worry about that!
In some places the valleys below seem to fold and contour in hundreds of shapes.
In one area the particular soils involved produced this almost bright yellow color topped by purple. What a magnificent place to view. We are still in awe. By-the-way, this picture shows the huge scale of the Badlands. The road from which I pictured the bright colors continued on to the top of this area, and a motor home can be seen at the top...highlighted by the arrow I placed in the picture.
We will look further in our pictures and try to bring out more, but I am sure soon Rushmore, and others will crowd these memories.
Duke
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The badlands is H-U-G-E...The views are as varied as possible. This was a climb up to the top of the wall of the badlands.
A view across the Badlands shows all sorts of shapes and colors. The view also changes with the movement of the sun across the sky.
The badlands are actually many, many layers of dirt, clay, fossils, and many of volcanic dust. You can view in the picture below right the colors of the layers. The dust came from volcano activity West of the area which was a shallow lake millions of years ago. About 500,000 years ago the motion of water and wind began to cut into the soft rock. It is estimated the entire place will be leveled in another 500,000 years. I guess we'll never have to worry about that!
In some places the valleys below seem to fold and contour in hundreds of shapes.
In one area the particular soils involved produced this almost bright yellow color topped by purple. What a magnificent place to view. We are still in awe. By-the-way, this picture shows the huge scale of the Badlands. The road from which I pictured the bright colors continued on to the top of this area, and a motor home can be seen at the top...highlighted by the arrow I placed in the picture.
We will look further in our pictures and try to bring out more, but I am sure soon Rushmore, and others will crowd these memories. Duke
