THE BAD LANDS
East of the Black Hills, and within easy reach, is scenery, somewhat mountainous in nature, yet very different from anything in the Black Hills or in other mountainous regions. To anyone who has not travelled the “Scenic Highway through South Dakota,” a two days trip eastward from Rapid City over this road is well worth while.
The tourist enters the Bad Lands near the town of Scenic, 45 miles east of Rapid City. From this point the next 50 miles is in the midst of some of the strangest and most wonderful scenery known. Broad grass covered basins are dotted with bare rounded hillocks or great irregular shaped buttes and ridges. Along the northern border of this region and much of the time within sight of the road is “The Great Wall” several hundred feet in height, appearing against the sky line to be a succession of domes, towers, pinnacles and precipitous walls and gulches. The soil varies in color through the shades of white, buff, yellow, red and green. The valleys and flat plateaus on the tops of the ridges or buttes are usually grass covered while the slopes stand out most prominent because of their sheer height and nakedness. It is a scene that cannot be properly described; strange and wonderful in the extreme. At first seemingly grotesque, then strangely beautiful, impressions are left on the mind that will never be forgotten.
Pictures and more detailed description of this region, also a complete guide of the road from Rapid City eastward will be found in our “_Map and Guide of the Scenic Highway through South Dakota_.”
No tourist should leave the Black Hills until this trip has been taken either by automobile or rail. In either case he should go as far east as the towns of Interior or Kadoka, and actually go through Cedar Pass which is five miles northeast of Interior.
