Badlands National Park: Saddle Pass Trail

The Saddle Pass Trail is a short but steep hike that provided the best workout of my visit to Badlands National Park.

The Wall's rugged beauty never fails to impress.  Even when you know you're about to climb it.

I wondered why the trail were marked with poles rather than cairns.  But the "rocky" landscape is a lot more fragile up close than it appears from a distance.

The trail is considered "strenuous" for good reason.  It's barely a trail, and goes almost straight up with no significant switchbacks.

I can't even imagine what early settlers coming from the north must have felt like reaching this point.  Or how they decided this was the best place to forge a route down.

The Castle Trail extends to the east and west once you finish climbing the Badlands Wall.  But I decided against hiking any of it, mainly because it just didn't seem to go anywhere interesting.

One last look to the east, then I headed back down.  The trail is listed as having just 216 feet of net elevation gain over a little more than a third of a mile, but it seems tougher than that for some reason.  Definitely worth doing, though, to work up a little sweat!