Attachment-T_ExistingWaysideExhibits.pdf

Attachment T, Existing Wayside Exhibits

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK

Wayside Exhibit Plan

Reviewed & Approved

SUBJECT TO INCLUDED REVISIONS

Regional Director July 26. 1988

HFC Manager Ausust 22 e 1988

Prepared by:

Badlands National Park and Harpers Ferry Center Division of Wayside Exhibits

Written by: .

Jay Shuler, Chief of Interpretat1on Badlands National Park

Date 7 I

\.? 1 /lll?'?~ Sec. · l

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK

CONTENTS

Exhibit Number Subject

1 Park Orientation

2 The Badlands Wall

3 The Door Nature Trail

4 Three Trails

5 Cedar Pass Orientation

6 Cliff Shelf Nature Trail

7 Saddle Pass Trail

8 A Treasure Trove of Fossils

9 Some Survived (Did not survive the planning process. Omit.}

10 Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail

11 Mericoidon Exhibit

12 Mesohippus Exhibit

13 Hyracodon Exhibit

14 Subhyracodon Exhibit

15 Hyaenodon Exhibit

16 Stylemus Exhibit

17 Archaeotherium Exhibit

18 Castle Trail Trailhead

19 Journey to Wounded Knee

20 Prairie Wind Boardwalk

21 Prairie Plants and Animals

22 Homesteads and Ranches

23 Fossil Soils

Location

Big Badlands Overlook

Big Badlands Overlook

Doors and Windows

Doors and Windows

Cedar Pass Overlook

Cliff Shelf Overlook

Saddle Pass Trailhead

Fossil Exh. Shelter 1

Fossil Exh. Shelter 2

Fossil Exhibit Parking

Along Exhibit Trail

Along Exhibit Trail

Along Exhibit Trail

Along Exhibit Trail

Along Exhibit Trail

Along Exhibit Trail

Along Exhibit Trail

Fossil Exhibit Parking

Bigfoot Overlook

Grasslands View

End of Boardwalk

Clastic Dikes

Rainbow Overlook

Exhibit Number Subject

24 Jungle on a Seabed

25 Ancient Hunters

26 Park Orientation

27 Birds and Junipers

28 Born of Volcanos

29 High Grassy Tables

30 Beware of Bison

31 The Complete Prairie

32 Bison Biology (omitted}

33 The Aggressive Bison

34 Bulletin Board

35 Beware of Bison (II}

36 South Unit Orientation

37 Badlands Gunnery Range

38 Washichu Trailhead

39 Brush Arbor

Location

Yellow Mounds Overlook

Early Life Overlook

Pinnacles Overlook

Pinnacles Overlook

Pinnacles Overlook

Hay Butte Overlook

2nd Cattle Guard

Roberts Prairie Dog Town

Rim Road and Wall Road

Sage Creek Campground

Sage Creek Campground

Quinn Table

BIA 27 & Sheep Mt. Lt.

W rim Sheep Mt. Table

S end Sheep Mt. Table

White River VC

Subject

Location

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 1

General Orientation to vehicle tours of park

On left side of state highway 249 (left and right as perceived by a visitor traveling from E to W on the loop road will be used in this context throughout this document), 9.69 miles W from park boundary at NE end of park at existing Big Badlands Overlook.

S (Visitors reading the exhibit panel will be facing s. This terminology will be used throughout this proposal.)

To assist visitors in orienting to the park, and in planning their trip through it by means of a map showing park facilities and points of interest, and giving distance to park attractions in southwest South Dakota. Nearby parks should be briefly described.

Points in the park to be identified are Door Nature Trail, Window Trail, Notch Trail, Castle Trail, Cliff Shelf Nature Trail, Cedar Pass Visitor Center, Cedar Pass Lodge, Cedar Pass Campground, Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail, Sage Creek Rim Road (mentioning bison range), Roberts Prairie Dog Town, Sheep Mountain Table, and the South Unit of the park. Points outside the park to be identified are Kadoka, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the towns of Interior and Wall, Rapid City, Mount Rushmore National Memorial, Wind Cave National Park, Jewell Cave National Monument, Devils Tower National Monument, Custer State Park, and others. An orientation to the wayside exhibits will be included.

Comments

A quotation from Cleophas c. O'Harra's book, 7he White River Badlands, will serve both to define and to interpret the phrase, "the Big Badlands."

As this overlook provides a first impression of the Badlands to visitors traveling from E to w, a high priority should be assigned to landscaping as described in the Introduction. This would include replacement of asphalt and repainting of hand rails. Further, the hump in the trail connecting Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 should be removed to make Exhibit 2 more easily accessible to mobility handicapped visitors.

For nine months out of the year this exhibit map will be the only orientation available to visitors as they enter the park. During the summer months, when maps and other information are available at the entrance station and visitor centers, it will help visitors plan hikes to take, and facilities to visit in the Cedar Pass area. The map will enable visitors to make informed decisions about where to go in the park and nearby areas.

The southern border of the park is quite close here, and cattle are almost always in view. As many visitors confuse cattle with bison from this distance, here would be a suitable place to explain the difference.

The map should be weatherproofed and sheltered by a roof with a five foot overhang to prevent fading and deterioration, and to shelter visitors reading the map from inclement weather.

Title

1-1

Subtitle

1-2

1-3

1-4

Map Labels

1-5

The Big Badlands

Badlands National Park - 244,000 acres

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 1

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The French trappers called them les mauvaises terres a traverser - bad lands to travel across. Now, good roads make travel easy in the Badlands, one of the strangest and most spectacular landscapes in North

America.

Watch for wayside exhibits (like this one) beside park roads.

YOU ARE HERE Prairie Wind Overlook

Big Badlands Overlook "Homesteads and Ranches"

Door Trail "Jungle on a Seabed"

Castle Trail "Ancient Hunters"

Window Trail Pinnacles Overlook

Notch Trail Buffalo Gap National Grassland

Cliff Shelf Nature Trail Sage Creek Rim Road

Cedar Pass Visitor Center "A Changing Climate

Medicine Root Loop Trail A Changing Scene"

1-5 Cont. Cedar Pass Lodge

Interior

Saddle Pass Trail

Fossil Exhibit Trail

"Journey to Wounded Knee"

Parkwide map

YOU ARE HERE

Cedar Pass Visitor Center

Loop Road

Cedar Pass District

Sage Creek Wilderness Area

Stronghold District

Pine Ridge Reservation

White River Visitor Center

Palmer Creek Unit

Pinnacles District

Labels - page 2 2/90

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 1

1-6

1-7

1-8

Map of Badlands National Park

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 1

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Collage illustration of key Badlands features: eroded pinnacles, historic settler, prairie dogs

Map of Route 240, tour loop

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 2

The Badlands Wall

On left side of state highway 240, .69 miles W from park boundary at NE end of park at exist ing Big Badlands Overlook. This exhibit should be placed at the overlook at the end of the walkway.

sw

This exhibit will be low-profile, set at a 45 degree angle (as will be all other exhibits in this proposal unless otherwise specified).

To help visitors to understand the geologic, geographic, and cultural significance of the Badlands Wall. The boundaries of the park were determined originally by the location of the Wall. This can nicely be interpreted in part by another quote from O'Harra.

2-1

2-2

Photo caption

2-3

The Badlands Wall

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 2

The Badlands Wall constantly retreats north as it erodes and washes into the White River Valley below. The Wall, an intricately carved cliff, divides the upper from the lower prairie.

The Wall is more than sixty miles long. It is the geologic

8/88 feature around which park boundaries were drawn. The Loop Road follows the Wall, sometimes dipping to the lower prairie, then climbing back to the rim.

Anywhere a wagon could be worked up and down the Wall was called a pass by homesteaders. Getting a team and wagon through one of the steep, uneven passes was not to be undertaken lightly.

Today, daily, thousands of people easily negotiate the passes in pick-ups and automobiles.

In the 1920's, when some of the more successful homesteaders had cars, even they had problems with the passes. No one dared tackle Badlands roads in wet weather without a shovel at hand to dig Model-T's out of ruts and mudholes.

2-4

2-5

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 2

Historic photo of horse pulling early automobile

Historic photo of early auto in Badlands scenery

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Orientation

Purpose

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 3

The Door Nature Trail

On left side of State hwy 240, 2.80 miles W of NE boundary of park at northeast end of the existing Doors and Windows parking lot at the site of the Door Trail sign.

E

Thi$ trailhead sign should be designed to attract visitors to The Door Nature Trail, a self-guided trail which interprets the deposition and eventual erosion of the Badlands landscape.

Information on the trailhead sign will include a trail map, length, degree of difficulty, and handicapped accessibility.

The park plans to divide the long Doors-and Windows parking lot into two areas, separately accessible from the road, and connected by a trail and a paved driveway. This will permit visitors more easily to find and make choices among the features served by the parking area. The brown log railing between the road and the parking lot, about a thousand feet long, will be removed and replaced by a grassy berm.

A trailguide dispenser will be located about 50 yards down the trail from the trailhead sign.

3-1

Trail Specs.

3-2

3-3

Map labels

Door Nature Trail

Easy Walk

1/2 mile round trip

Labels 8/88

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 3

Trail Guide available from dispenser 50 yards down trail

This trail probes a classic landscape where the birth and destruction of the Badlands can be read in the layers of rock.

Eroding highlands to the west provided the sediments that built the layers. Now the layers are eroding into canyons and spires

-- into cliffs and tables.

The trail is wheelchair accessible to ,just past the "open door."

There the scene can be viewed -- and many of the features studied that are described in the Trail Guide.

Door Nature Trail

YOU ARE HERE

Parking area

3-4 Map of Door Nature Trail

3-5 Illustration of nodules along trail

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 3

Purpose

Orientation

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 4

Three Trails Trailhead

On left side of State hwy 240, 2.90 miles west of NE boundary of park at E end of the existing Doors-and-Windows parking area.

Note: The park plans to divide the Doors-and Windows parking area into two areas (see Exhibit 3). This, it is felt, will simplify visitor choices among the features reached from the parking area, and be less ugly.

The three trailheads panel will clearly direct visitors to the Window Trail (wheelchair accessible), the Notch Trail, and the Castle Trail (and possibly a "Prairie Loop" now being discussed). The Window trail is quite short, the Notch Trail is of moderate length, and the Castle Trail is about four miles long. They are the only three marked hiking trails in the park, and as such are important to many visitors.

sw

At this time, trails give access to three separate "windows" at the Doors and Windows parking area. The E window (the window at the E end of the existing parking lot) monopolizes visitor attention. The park plans to eliminate and restore the trails, hand rails, and platforms giving access to the two windows at the E end of the parking lot to natural prairie and badlands conditions, leaving only the window on the SW end of the parking lot with trails overlook structures. The trail to the surviving window overlook will be straightened and made accessible to mobility handicapped visitors by construction of a short boardwalk. The park plans a cross-walk for visitors who hike the Castle Trail, the only trail in this area that cannot be reached from the parking lot except by crossing hwy 240.

In sum, the changes at Exhibits 3 and 4 will simplify finding and enjoying all of the features available fn the vicinity, and will improve the landscape by restoring to prairie large areas now paved by asphalt, and by removing conspicious platforms and hand rails.

4-1

Subtitle

4-2

4-3

Map caption

4-4

Map labels

4-5

Three Trails

Castle Trail (across Loop Road)

Labels 8/88

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 4

This trail affords a 5 mile walk through badlands, buttes, and prairie to the Fossil Exhibit Trail parking area. You may wish to take the Medicine Root Loop Trail at the junction with Saddle

Pass Trail and return here after walking 6 miles. Both routes are mostly level, though quite rough for short stretches.

Pack plenty of water, especially on hot days.

Use marked cross-walk on the Loop Road to reach the beginning of the trail.

Trails Parking

Park Headquarters

Loop Road

Saddle Pass Trail

4-5 Cont.

Subtitle

4-6

Access

4-8

Subtitle

4-9

Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail parking

Castle Trail

Medicine Root Loop Trail

Doors Nature Trail

The Window Trail

Notch Trail

YOU ARE HERE

Cliff Shelf Nature Trail

Window Trail {left)

Labels - page 2 2/90

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 4

Only a fifth of a mile round trip. The trail winds to a secret badlands window where the awesome wounds of erosion have laid the land open.

This trail is fully wheelchair accessible.

Notch Trail

4-10

4-11

4-12

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 4

One mile round trip. Here's adventure in rough country: a ladder to climb, narrow ledges, and a stunning view of the l~ite

River Valley beyond the cliff at the Notch.

Supervise children on this hike; there are steep dropoffs.

Ladder on Notch Trail

4-13

4-14

Color photo of visitors on Notch Trail

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 4

Map of 11 Three Trails, .. including Castle Trail, Notch Trail, Window Trail

Orientation

Purpose

Comment

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 5

Cedar Pass Orientation

In the parking area on the right side of State hwy 240, 3.80 miles from the NE park boundary.

w

To orient visitors to several scenic features and to facilities which they soon may be using. These include the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the White River, the town of Interior, the Cedar Pass Campground, the Cedar Pass Lodge, and Park Head quarters and Visitor Center. This will be accomplished by a vista-graphic.

A grassy extension from the curb will prevent vehicles from parking where they obstruct the view of the exhibit. The parking lot may be modified to minimize visitor intrusion on an adjacent archeological site.

5-1 The View From Cedar Pass

Vista-graphic captions

5-2 (top to bottom)

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

White River

State Highway 44

Town of Interior

Cedar Pass Campground

Cedar Pass Lodge

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 5

Park Headquarters and Cedar Pass Visitor Center

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5-3

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 5

Vista graphic with feature identifiers: the 11 View from Cedar

Pass ..

Orientation

Purpose

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 6

Cliff Shelf Nature Trail

In the parking area on the left side of State hwy 240, 4.25 miles W from the NE park boundary.

NE

This trailhead should direct visitors to the trail and the guide booklet dispenser a short distance up the trail. The trail's length, difficulty, and accessibility should be given.

The trail is accessible only to the most athletic of the mobility impaired. Minor rerouting, and reworking of the first SO feet of the trail, such as the park plans, will make Cliff Shelf accessible to more people.

6-1

Trail specs

6-2

6-3

Map labels

Cliff Shelf Nature Trail

An easy half-mile loop trail

Labels 6/88

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 6

Trail Guide available from dispenser 50 yards up trail

A marshy oasis under the Wall is home to many plants and animals otherwise scarce in the Badlands.

Wheelchair access is limited by two flights of stairs and steep slopes.

YOU ARE HERE

Parking area

Cliff Shelf Nature Trail

6-4 Map of Cliff Shelf Nature Trail

6-5 Illustration of magpie

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 6

Orientation

Purpose

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 7

Saddle Pass Trail

In the parking area on the right side of State hwy 240, 6.25 miles W from the NE park boundary.

N

Primarily, the trailhead will inform visitors of the length of the trail, its junction with the Castle Trail, and its difficulty. Visitors should also be told that the trail was named Saddle Pass because it was too steep to take a wagon across;

one had to negotiate it by foot or by horseback.

Just how steep it is, the visitor could be told, can be discovered by hiking to the top of the Wall.

Because of flooding, the trailhead should be placed about 50 feet up the trail.

7-1

Trail specs.

7-2

7-3

Map labels

7-4

Saddle Pass Trail

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 7

A rugged 1/4-mile climb to the junction with Castle Trail

2/90

Finding the pass too steep and rough for wagon traffic, homesteaders on the way to Interior parked their rigs at the top then walked or coaxed their horses down.

How steep is Saddle Pass Trail?

Find out for yourself. Half an hour will take you to the top of the Wall for a short exploration of level Castle Trail. Or take the Medicine Root Loop

Trail for a 4 mile walk.

YOU ARE HERE

Saddle Pass Trail

Loop Road

Castle Trail

Medicine Root Loop Trail

7-5

7-6

Map of Saddle Pass Trail

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 7

Historic photo of school children on horses

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 8

Fossil Formation

On the S interior wall of the shelter beside the Fossil Exhibit Trail parking area on the left side of State hwy 240, 9.80 miles W from the NE park boundary.

s

To inform visitors what fossils are, how they are formed, and how they become exposed in the park.

8-1

8-2

A Treasure Trove of Fossils

Labels 6/88

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 8

Untold numbers of animals live and die, but few are fossilized.

Those with bones stand a good chance, especially if buried soon after death.

Here, getting buried was commonplace between 37 and 23 million years ago, the Oligocene and part of the Eocene Epochs of geology. Every so often volcanos erupted far to the west and southwest. Clouds of ash drifted this way. Fed by vast storms that engulfed the Black Hills, floods swept over this area and covered everything with ash, sand, and rock.

Water soaked the mud, dissolving minerals, then it soaked the bones, depositing the minerals -- and the bones became fossils.

The fossil-rich layers of the Badlands built up. Now eroded, the layers tell us what life was like millions of years ago.

8-3

8-4

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 8

Illustration of fossil-making conditions: volcanic ash mixed with floodwaters covering Protoceras

Fossil skull of Protoceras

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 9

Some survived -- some died out

In the shelter halfway through the Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail. The trail is on the left side of State hwy 240, 9.80 miles W from the NE park boundary.

N

To demonstrate to visitors an array of Oligocene mammals, birds, and reptiles, some of which left descendants among today's fauna, some of which died out. This will tie-in the animals of the past with those already familiar to visitors, and will indirectly touch on evolution.

(This exhibit will be removed.)

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park

Exhibit 9

Orientation

Purpose

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 10

The Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail

Panel to be mounted on the exterior of the E wall of the shelter at the beginning of the Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail. The trail is on the left side of State hwy 240, 9.80 miles W from the NE park boundary.

w

To inform visitors of the length, difficulty, accessibility, and the availability of a trail guide booklet for the Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail.

HFC is redesigning protective domes and boxes for the exhibits, and the park will reroute some of the trail, and construct a boardwalk for a part of the trail to make it accessible to mobility impaired visitors. These proposals will considerably improve the appearance and the interpretive quality of the trail.

10-1

Trail specs.

10-2

10-3

Map labels

Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail

1/4-mile loop

Wheelchair Accessible

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 10

Trail Guide available from dispenser beside trail.

Replicas of fossils found in this area are exhibited along the trail.

YOU ARE HERE

Parking area

Exhibit Shelter

Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail

10-4 Map of Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail

10-5 Illustration of Archaeotherium

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 10

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 11

Label for Merycoidon exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

At first of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Parallel to the trail

To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with the redesigned boxes and plexiglass domes.

11-1

11-2

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 11

Merycoidon

About the size of a sheep, with fangs on both upper and lower jaws, Merycoidons could readily defend themselves. They fed mostly on plants.

11-3 Illustration of Merycoidon

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 11

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 12

Label for Mesohippus exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

At second of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Parallel to the trail

To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with

12-1

12-2

Mesohippus

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wqyside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 12

Little larger than a collie dog, Mesohippus was an ancestor of today•s horses.

12-3 Illustration of Mesohippus

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 12

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 13

Label for Hyracodon exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

At third of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Parallel to the trail

To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with

13-1

13-2

Hyracodon

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 13

A small, trim and speedy rhinoceros. Not destined to be the ancestor of modern rhinos, however, which evolved from larger stock.

13-3 Illustration of Hyracodon

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 13

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 14

Label for Subhyracodon exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

At fourth of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Parallel to the trail

To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with

14-1

14-2

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 14

Subhyracodon

Another Oligocene rhinoceros. Though its name would imply otherwise, Subhyracodon was larger and stockier than Hyracodon, and probably was less vulnerable to predators.

14-3 Illustration of Subhyracodon

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 14

Orientation

Purpose

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 15

Label for Hyaenodon exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

At fifth of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Parallel to the trail

To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with

15-1

15-2

Hyaenodon

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 15

The Hyaenodon is an Oligocene counterpart to the modern hyena of

Africa. Both have powerful jaws. Hyenas crush the bones of their prey to get at the marrow, and perhaps Hyaenodon did also.

15-3 Illustration of Hyaenodon

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 15

Content

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 16

Subject Label for Stylemys exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

8/88

Location At sixth of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit Trail

Orientation Parallel to the trail

Purpose To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with the redesigned boxes and plexiglass domes.

16-1

16-2

Styl emys

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 16

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Judging by the wealth of fossils they left behind, land tortoises were abundant here during the Oligocene. Similar tortoises plod over the Galapagos Islands today, munching cactus and other plants.

16-3 Illustration of Stylemys

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 16

8/88

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 17

Subject Label for Archaeotherium exhibit, including drawing of skeleton.

Location At seventh of the seven fossil exhibits of the Fossil Exhibit

Trail.

Orientation Parallel to the trail

Purpose To give viewers a context for the skulls and other remains displayed along the trail.

The 12 x 9 fiberglass exhibit panels will be displayed in mounts to be designed to work with the redesigned boxes and plexiglass domes.

17-1

17-2

Archaeotherium

Labels 10/87

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 17

The heads of these pig-like mammals were sometimes more than four feet long. Sturdy tusks protruded from their upper jaws. Yet they left no descendants alive today. They are related to modern pigs only through common ancestors.

17-3 Illustration of Archaeotherium

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 17

Orientation

Purpose

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 18

Castle Trailhead

At Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail parking area on the left side of State hwy 240, 9.80 miles W from the NE park boundary.

E

To inform visitors of the length, difficulty, trail intersections, and trailhead at far end, and accessibility of the Castle Trail. The necessity to take water along will be stressed.

The trailhead and the parking lot would be improved in appearance by removing the asphalt from an area of the parking lot and providing a natural covering. This would prevent parked cars from blocking the trailhead and would make it easier for hikers to locate. A cross-walk should be provided.

18-1

18-2

Trail captions

18-3

Castle Trailhead {across Loop Road)

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 18

2/90

A 5 mile walk through badlands, buttes, and prairie to Three Trails parking area. Or, you may wish to take the Medicine Root Loop Trail for a 7 mile walk. Both trails are mostly level, though quite rough for short stretches.

Pack plenty of water, especially on hot days.

Use cross-walk to cross Loop Road for beginning of trail.

Fossil Exhibit Trail parking

Loop Road

Saddle Pass Trail

Medicine Root Loop Trail

Trails parking

Park Headquarters

Castle Trail

YOU ARE HERE

L-----------~----------------------------------------~---------------------------------

18-4 Map of Castle Trail

18-5 Color photo of hikers on Castle Trail

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 18

Orientation

Purpose

Comment

Content 11/86

Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 19

Journey to Wounded Knee

At existing Bigfoot (sic) Overlook on the right side of State hwy 240, 13.08 miles W from the NE park boundary. The exhibit will be at the beginning of the walkway to the Bigfoot Pass overlook.

To make visitors aware of the importance of Chief Big Foot's decision to cross the Badlands Wall as he fled south toward Pine Ridge, instead of joining Indians at Stronghold Table to the West.

He and his band were pursued by a unit of the U. S. Army, which eventually caught up with him near Wounded Knee Creek.

The exhibit will stress the role of the Badlands Wall as an impediment to travel, and demonstrate the importance of the passes to the people of the the area.

The short trail to the overlook nearest Loop 240 will be removed as will the existing exhibit.

19-1

19-2

Vista locator

19-3

Photo caption

19-4

Journey To Wounded Knee

Labels

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 19

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December 24, 1890. A bitter Christmas Eve wind rattled the wagon in which Minneconjou Chief Big Foot lay waiting while his people cleared a pass down the Badlands Wall. Several hours of hard work with axes and spades made the disused trail passable. The band of 350 men, women and children continued their flight from units of the United States Army.

Big Foot was ill, close to death and disillusioned by the broken promises of Whites and by the lack of unity among Indians. His agony would last only five days. On December 29th, he, nearly

200 of his people, and 30 soldiers would die in the massacre at

Wounded Knee, 65 miles to the south.

The pass where Chief Big Foot and his people descended the

Badlands Wall

Chief Big Foot

19-5

19-6

19-7

Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 19

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Screenprinted image of site where Chief Big Foot descended the

Badlands Wall

Illustration of wagon similar to type used by Chief Big Foot and his band

Historic photo of Chief Big Foot

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 20

Prairie Wind Boardwalk

At existing Grasslands View (to be renamed Prairie Wind Boardwalk) on the right side of State hwy 240, 13.08 miles W from the NE park boundary.

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A boardwalk (constructed by the park with plans by a landscape architect) in tandem with a wayside exhibit will acquaint visitors with the role of the wind in creating and maintaining the prairie environment. At the same time, the prairie and its plants and animals will be introduced, and contrasted with the agricultural environment in sight just across the park border.

Although there are brief interludes when the pra1r1e air is still, the prairie seems to be holding its breath until the wind springs up again. This will be indicated on the exhibit, making visitors feel the constant influence of the wind.

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Map labels

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Caption

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Prairie Wind

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 20

To the east, from Georgia to Labrador, lie the Appalachians. To the west, from Mexico to Alaska, tower the Rockies. Between lies the prairie. Here warm air from the Gulf of Mexico meets cold air from the Arctic, giving birth to wild, changeable weather personified by the prairie wind.

Prairie summers are hotter, and winters are colder, than on either coast. Droughts alternate with downpours. The wind hurries wildfire across the open land. Pummeled trees seek protection behind ridges and in gullies. But not grass. Grass is at home on the prairie as waves are on the sea.

The North American Prairie

Prairie fire

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Map of mid-continent prairie

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Exhibit 20

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Screenprinted color image of painting depicting animals fleeing prairie fire

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 21

Subject Prairie plants and animals

Location At the end of the Prairie Boardwalk

Orientation N

Purpose To suggest the diversity of prairie life

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Prairie Plants and Animals

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 21

Grass sends roots deep where water is last to dry out, and forms a mat to blot up rain before the wind can steal it. Its growing buds lie just beneath the surface where grazing mammals cannot harm them. And grass bends with the wind, enduring while it creates a prairie home for itself-- and for many other plants and animals.

(List of plants and animals which will be illustrated on the panel at the end of the boardwalk.)

PLANTS

Blue Grama

Western Wheat

Needle-and-thread

Buffalo Grass

Yucca

Prickly Pear Cactus

Purple Coneflower

ANIMALS

Sharp-tailed Grouse

Long-billed Curlew

Western Meadowlark

Pronghorn

Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel

Western Garter Snake

Grasshoppers

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Art of Blue grama

Art of Buffalo grass

Art of Needle-and-thread

Art of Western wheat

Art of Yucca

Art of Western meadowlark

Art of Long-billed curlew

Art of Sharp-tailed grouse

Art of Pronghorn

Art of Western garter snake

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 21

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 22

Homesteads and Ranches

At existing Clastic Dikes Overlook on the left side of State

Hwy 240, 21.42 miles W from the NE park boundary.

Orientation SW

Purpose To demonstrate to visitors how the original homestead allotments

(in the prairie in general, and in the White River Valley in particular) were too small to support a family, and how a patchwork of small holdings soon gave way to a pattern of much larger ranches. Life on yesterday•s homesteads and today•s

Comment ranches will be evoked.

A short steep trail leads down to a cliff-edge exhibit on erosion. This exhibit and the trail should be removed.

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Homesteads and Ranches

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Exhibit 22

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Homesteaders poured into the Badlands when the Milwaukee Railroad completed track through the White River Valley in 1907.

11 Visualize if you can, 11 one observer wrote, 11 a tar paper shack, tent, or dugout on every quarter section of land ••• and you will have a minds• eye picture of what the community looked like

A checker-board pattern was created, bearing little relationship to the natural lay of the land.

And bearing little relationship to the productivity of the land.

Most of the homesteads turned out to be 11 Starvation Claims .. and were abandoned or sold. Starved-out homesteaders moved on to build towns and cities, or to seek another homestead in a land less harsh.

Today the ranches of this valley are measured in thousands of acres, and heavy equipment does most of the work once done by callused hands. Even so, unpredictable drought and economic crisis test ranchers today as severely as they tested homesteaders yesterday.

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Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 22

Historic photo of eight homesteaders in front of sod house

Historic photo of sod house with gramophone

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 23

Oligocene Climate

At Rainbow Overlook on the left side of State hwy 240, 23.00 miles W from the NE park boundary at the site of the existing exhibit.

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To show to visitors the Oligocene climate sequence from hot-and-humid in the beginning to cool-and-damp at the close - and to present the geologic evidence for this sequence.

Because the colors of the layers indicate the plant and animal environment present just after the layers were formed, a color key of the Oligocene climate - a rainbow of earth-colors -will be the visual theme of the exhibit.

Removal of the asphalt trail and hand rails leading SSW along the gully to nowhere is recommended.

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Scene "A"

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 23

A Changing Climate -- A Changing Scene

Color layers exposed in the slopes before you mark fossil soils which were formed during the Oligocene and Eocene

Epochs. They contain evidence of life here between 37 and 23 million years ago.

The fossil soil colors under each illustration match slightly moist, freshly exposed rock.

23-3 Thirty-five Million Years Ago

23-4 A warm climate with ample rain produced open woodland.

The Saber-toothed Cat, Dinictis, prowled the woods along with the nearly elephant-size Titanothere, a large land mammal of the Eocene.

Scene "B"

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 23

23-5 During the Oligocene the climate became drier and cooler, restricting the woodland to stream banks. But between streams, low plants grew among scattered trees. Here lived the tiny deer-like Leptomeryx, and numerous land snails, and land tortoises.

Scene "C"

23-7 Twenty-three Million Years Ago

By this time the climate was even cooler and drier, and trees were absent except near streams. Low shrubs, wildflowers, and grass had formed the first North American prairie. Burrowing beavers, Palaeocaster, lived there, much in the style of today's prairie dogs.

23-8 At the bases of some of the buttes you can see a yellow fossil soil below a red fossil soil. Both are discussed at the

Yellow Mounds Exhibit a mile west on the Loop Road. In all, eighty-seven fossil soils have been distinguished here.

Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 23

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23-9 Illustration of forest scene and prehistoric mammals from early

Oligocene

23-10 Block diagram of early Oligocene paleoenvironment at Badlands

23-11 Illustration of savannah scene and prehistoric mammals from Early

Late Oligocene

23-12 Block diagram of Early Late Oligocene paleoenvironment

23-13 Illustration of plains scene and Palaeocasters from Late

Oligocene

23-14 Block diagram of Late Oligocene paleoenvironment

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Exhibit 24

Black Shale and Yellow Mounds

At Yellow Mounds Overlook on the left side of State hwy 240, 24.01 miles W from the NE park boundary at site of existing exhibit.

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To portray the geologic foundation of the park, the dark Pierre Shale of the Cretaceous Period, its marine animals, and the land animals that that lived in the forest that developed when the sea drained at the conclusion of the Cretaceous.

The opalescent fossil sea creatures of the Pierre sea will be portrayed as they appear in the rock, as will the tropical environment of the time when the colorful fossil soils were formed from the Pierre Shale and the first deposits which swept down from the Black Hills at the beginning of Oligocene time.

The yellow mounds are vivid here, and a small exposure of the Pierre Shale may be seen in the gully about 50 feet in front of the exhibit.

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Jungle on a Seabed

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 24

A jungle grew here. Before that, a shallow sea covered the land. Both are gone now, but both left evidence of their passing.

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The sea's signature is ammonites, baculites, and clams, pearly fossils entombed in a fossil mud called the Pierre Shale. This shale is exposed in the gully below you.

A jungle sprang up after the sea drained away about 65 million years ago. For a long time tree roots broke up the shale, and chemicals from decaying plants produced a yellow soil. About 37 million years ago sediment from the west washed over the jungle.

The jungle rebounded, converting the new sediment into a red soil. Buried by later sediments, both yellow and red soils were fossilized. We call them the Yellow Mounds Paleosol and the

Interior Paleosol.

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Graphic labels

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 24

For younger fossil soils, see 11 A Changing Climate - A Changing

Scene .. exhibit, a mile east on the Loop Road.

Interior fossil soil

Yellow Mounds fossil soil

Pierre Shale

Baculites

Ammonites

Clams

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 24

Block diagram of paleosoil layers with inset of prehistoric

Ammonite, Clam and Baculite

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 25

Wildlife and Ancient Hunters

At existing Early Life Overlook on the right side of State hwy 240, 26.61 miles W from the NE park boundary. The exhibit will be in the grassy enclosure between the road and the parking lot.

The grassy strip should be widened to make room for the exhibit and to keep parked cars from blocking the view.

SW, the viewer looking across the road. The present orientation is NE which puts the viewer's back to the cliff and the juniper grove where Indian camps were documented.

To show visitors how a juniper grove that today feeds and shelters bighorns, mule deer, and other wildlife, yesterday attracted an even greater variety of wildlife, and the ancient hunters that preyed upon them.

In the Regional archaeologist report of 11/3/53 (in park library), Morris F. Skinner, a widely known and respected paleontologist of the American Museum of Natural history, is quoted extensively about the presence of bison bones at this spot which suggest an Indian bison jump. The report also shows photographs of fire pits, hearths, and other artifacts which establish an Indian occupa tion of the area. These artifacts have eroded away since Dr. Skinner observed them, which would mitigate the current risk to the site should we decide to interpret using this information. In the 1960's, the park had Dr. Dee Taylor of the University of Montana do an extensive study which not only supported Morris Skinner, but pointed out the probable location of the jump. A further study just beyond the park border to the southwest proved the presence of Indian hunters here 11,000 years ago at an imperial mammoth kill. Numerous paleo-indian points have recently been found throughout the Badlands. This gives us a unique chance in a National Park to interpret North American people almost from their arrival to the present •

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Ancient Hunters

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Exhibit 25

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A thousand years ago, a hunter stood where you stand. He watched bison drift like a dark cloud shadow across prairie below. Could the herd be stampeded onto the high prairie behind the cliff on your left, and driven over the edge? If so, injured animals could be butchered on the spot, on the very edge of the camp.

The hunter and his companions had pitched their shelters close by the cliff, protected from the cutting wind. Water seeped from the slope. A little digging with a sharp stick had released a spring.

How do we know? Bits of pottery, arrowheads, razor-edged quartz flakes used for butchering -- a rabbit jaw and bird bone mixed among charcoal of long-quenched campfires -- and many bison bones have eroded out of the gullies that surround you.

Collecting artifacts and fossils is illegal in the park.

Graphic captions

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Pottery fragments

Arrowheads

Bone awl

Bone bead

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Graphics

Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 25

Illustration of prehistoric Native American artifacts:

projectile points, pottery fragments, stone blades, bone awl, bone bead

Screenprinted color image of painting depicting buffalo jump

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 26

Park Orientation

Under the shelter at the east end of Pinnacles Overlook on the left side of State hwy 240,

27.05 miles W from the NE park boundary.

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To assist visitors in orienting themselves to the park and planning their trip through it by means of a map showing park facilities and points of interest, and driving distance to points in the park and to attractions in southwest South Dakota.

Points in the park to be identified will include White River Visitor Center (see comment below), Sheep Mountain Table, Sage Creek Rim Road (a good place to observe the bison herd) , Sage Creek Primitive Campground, Roberts Prairie Dog Town, Fossil Exhibit Nature Trail, Cedar Pass Camp ground, Cedar Pass Lodge, and Park Headquarters and Visitor Center. Points outside the park will include Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the town of Kadoka, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

A brief orientation to the wayside exhibits will be included.

For nine months out of the year this exhibit map will be the only orientation available to visitors as they enter the park from the west. Even during the summer months it will be useful to visitors in planning hikes to take and facilities to visit in the Cedar Pass area.

The park plans to remove some of the hand rails, and to reroute the trail to Exhibit 27 to make it accessible to mobility impaired visitors.

When the South Unit Development Concept Plan is implemented the White River VC at Rocky Ford will be replaced by the new VC at Fog Creek.

For this reason, this exhibit should be designed to be easily updated.

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Subtitle

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~tap labels

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The Big Badlands

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 26

Badlands National Park -- 244,000 acres

The French trappers called them les mauvaises terres a traverser

-- bad lands to travel across. Now, good roads make travel easy through the Badlands, one of the strangest and most spectacular landscapes in North America.

Watch for wayside exhibits (like this one) beside park roads.

YOU ARE HERE Prairie Wind Overlook

Big Badlands Overlook "Homesteads and Ranches"

Door Trail "Jungle on a Seabed"

Castle Trail "Ancient Hunters"

Window Trail Pinnacles Overlook

Notch Trail Buffalo Gap National

"High Grassy Tables" Grassland

Cliff Shelf Nature Trail Sage Creek Rim Road

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Roberts Prairie Dog Town

Sage Creek Wilderness Area

Sage Creek Primitive Campground

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 26

"A Changing Climate --

A Changing Scene"

To Stronghold District and Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Cedar Pass Lodge

Interior

Saddle Pass Trail

Fossil Exhibit Trail

"Journey to Wounded Knee"

Badlands National Park

Medicine Root Loop Trail

Parkwide Map

YOU ARE HERE

Cedar Pass Visitor Center

Loop Road

Pinnacles District

Sage Creek Wilderness Area

Stronghold District

Pine Ridge Reservation

Cedar Pass District

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Rim Road and

South Unit

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White River Visitor Center

Palmer Creek Unit

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 26

A few hundred yards to the west, turn left on the Sage Creek Rim

Road for Roberts Prairie Dog Town and the Sage Creek Primitive

Campground. Wildlife, particularly bison, is often seen near this gravel road.

The Sage Creek Rim Road overlooks the Badlands Wilderness Area -more than one hundred square miles of roadless mixed-grass prairie -- set aside under the Wilderness Act of 1964 to preserve forever its primeval character.

You may continue down this road to reach Sheep Mountain Table, the White River Visitor Center, and the Pine Ridge Indian

Reservation via State 44 west and B.I.A. 27 south.

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Map of Badlands National Park

Illustration of bison herd

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 26

Map of North Unit, including Sage Creek area

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 27

Birds and Junipers

South of the shelter at the east end of Pinnacles Overlook on the left side of State hwy 240, 27.05 miles W from the NE park boundary. The exhibit will be about 150 feet down the trail from the shelter where, just over the edge, a stegosauran fin of rock and junipers and lesser plants comprise a hidden garden.

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To establish the importance of junipers for birdlife in the Badlands. Birds are usually to be seen from the location of this proposed exhibit. After reading the exhibit visitors will understand what essentials junipers provide birds both in winter and in summer.

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Surrmer birds

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Birds and Junipers

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Exhibit 27

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A cliffside juniper grove is a natural garden featuring twisted trunks and sculpted rocks. Badlands birds seek out these pleasant places both in summer and in winter.

Here they find nest sites and song perches, and hiding places from predators and mean weather. Bluebirds, solitaires, robins, waxwings, and many others eat juniper berries, sweet with the flavor of gin.

It is the birds which plant the juniper gardens. Flying far after a good meal, they drop seeds at random. Some of those seeds grow up, and in time shelter other birds.

Long-eared Owl

Field Sparrow

Brown Thrasher

Mountain Bluebird

Logger-headed Shrike

Winter birds

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Rosy Finch

Tree Sparrow

Black-billed Magpie

Northern Shrike

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Badlands National Park

Exhibit 27

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Exhibit 27

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Background image of juniper in summer and winter: split-screen seasonal effect

Art of Long-eared Owl

Art of Field Sparrow

Art of Mountain Bluebird

Art of Brown Thrasher

Art of Logger-headed Shrike

Art of Townsend's Solitaire

Art of Rosy Finch

Art of Tree Sparrow

Art of Black-billed magpie

Art of Northern Shrike

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Bad'lands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 28

Moving Mountains

At the end of the trail, about a hundred yards south of Pinnacles Overlook on the left side of State hwy 240, 27.05 miles W from the NE park boundary.

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To explain to visitors how the layers of Badlands formations consist of mountains that were moved particle by particle from the Black Hills (seen on theW horizon), and why rivers no longer bring Black Hills sediments here.

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Born of Volcanos

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 28

Thirty-seven million years ago, the ancient crystalline core of the Black Hills had already been exposed by erosion. The long blue profile of those mountains, visible to the west, looked much as it does now.

About that time, streams flowing from the west began to deposit sediments in this area. Most of the sediment was windblown volcanic ash which had settled into the watershed which fed the streams. Occasionally the rivers brought gravel and stream-worn rocks from the Black Hills themselves. The ash weathered into clay, and turned into rock.

Erosion did not begin to gully the Badlands layers and foretell the present landscape until quite recently, perhaps only half a million years ago.

Vista captions

28-3 The Black Hills

Harney Peak

Mt. Rushmore

Rapid City

Sage Creek Wilderness Area

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Badlands National Park

Exhibit 28

28-4 Vista graphic with feature identifiers

28-5 Color photo of Mt. St. Helens eruption

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 28

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Badlands NP Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 29

High Grassy Tables

On an overlook not presently named on left side of Sage Creek Rim Road (SCRR) 1.7 miles NW of its intersection with State hwy 249; the intersection is 29.6 miles W from the NE park boundary.

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To explain the origin of the high grassy tables in the Sage Creek Basin, and how they are browsed by wildlife, and were cropped for hay by homesteaders.

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High Grassy Tables

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Badlands National Park Wayside Exhibit Plan

Exhibit 29

Erosion left a few high islands topped with virgin sod, the slopes so steep that…