Badlands National Park: Castle-Medicine Root Loop
Watch thriving bison herds while surveying million-year-old glacial architecture on this 4.2-mile lasso loop through the largest untouched mixed-grass prairie in North America.
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Trail Facts
- Distance: 6.3
Waypoints
BDL001
Location: 43.7581291, -101.9745026
From Saddle Pass trailhead, begin hiking NE
BDL002
Location: 43.7599869, -101.9733734
Catch your breath at small vista as trail steeply ascends
BDL003
Location: 43.7611389, -101.972702
Top of Badlands Wall, once used by Native Americans as a lookout to scan the area for enemies and herds
BDL005
Location: 43.7632332, -101.9703522
Lucky visitors may catch a glimpse of a black-footed ferret, N. America?s most endangered land mammal
BDL006
Location: 43.7624168, -101.9672775
Following trail E, take in the unique landscape of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires
BDL007
Location: 43.7629585, -101.9637985
Unique “shark fin” formation @ wide spot in trail; nice spot for panoramic photos of plateau
BDL008
Location: 43.7658997, -101.9451981
Turn L onto Medicine Root Trail
BDL009
Location: 43.7718582, -101.9601974
Keep binocs handy to scout for bison, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn on the buttes to the S
BDL004
Location: 43.7618523, -101.9726944
Turn R @ 4-way with Medicine Root Trail
BDL010
Location: 43.7682915, -101.9656601
Trail meets up with dry riverbed to R, hot spot for Oligocene fossils and Oglala Sioux arrowheads. Follow trail back S to top of Badlands Wall; descend Saddle Pass to parking lot
