Badlands Residency Day 57

May 01, 2014

Badlands Residency Day 57

Since our dawn patrol was canceled, I slept in and met up with the chief ranger mid-morning to discuss different things and chat about ideas revolving around my possible project. I also ended up meeting with several other people, saying goodbye and chatting about different things. In a strange turn of events, by the end of the day I had offers from three divisions to come volunteer for them for various projects that relate to my own. The potentials abound at this point. We'll see what works out, but my hopes are high right now. Such a good feeling to have so many people understand and share my vision for what could be a great end product. I drove north of the visitor center after lunch, and climbed around up at Big Badlands Overlook for some photos. Blue sky with prairie clouds, as I think of them. The endless parade of cumulus puff balls casting shadows that dance across the buttes. The clouds just don't look the same west of the Rockies, in my opinion. I also stopped for a solo hike off into an area between Cedar Pass and the Castle Trail. There are some stand alone buttes in there that I love, and I wanted to poke around a bit. Came back to the park for one more meeting before heading home to call family and organize for tomorrow. Went out again for evening photographs around Angel Butte, then had a rather late dinner with friends followed by a movie. Staying up now to go through photographs and empty my camera in preparation for tomorrow's branding that I'm attending. Sadly, I have now completely filled up my external hard drive, backup for my photographs. That's 1 terabyte of photos with some docs, too. Early wake-up time tomorrow, planning to be at John's by 6am to help finish the doughnuts he contributes to the branding food needs. Will do my best to post some pics through the day. Word has it that I'll be expected to wrestle some calves. I'll let you know how that goes.

Big Badlands Overlook area

Area I hiked out to, between Cedar Pass and Castle Trail.

Freshly dried mud, after the rains
of the last few days.

Tops layers of mud curl and separate from the lower layers

Loop Road approaching Cedar Pass.

Overview of the visitor center (with orange construction
fence for parking lot redo), Cedar Pass Lodge, and
BNP campgound in the distance.

From near my apartment, looking up at Cedar Pass.

Angel Butte. I've long intended to hike along the tops
of the hills to the butte, taking photos along the way.
Noticed the great sky this evening, and finally did it.