JLGriffis

Badlands got its name the hard way. The Lakota called it mako sica, "land bad," and French trappers went with les mauvaises terres à traverser, "the bad lands to cross." It was authorized as a national monument in 1929, established in 1939, and made a national park in 1978. The eroded layers hold some of the richest Oligocene fossil beds on Earth. These photos are all from one evening, June 19, 2017, around Cedar Pass.