While in the western South Dakota area, we drove through an area called the Badlands. Much of South Dakota is rolling hills and flat plains, and the area around the Badlands is that type. But, all of a sudden while driving along you start to see very spiky sharp hills, the kind that are called sawtooth ridges.

Right at the visitors center you can see beautiful spiky hills and can also observe the different colored layers that make up the geology of this area. Several million years ago this was the seabed of a large inland sea. The fossils found in this area are marine animals. Interspersed with the seabed layers are thick layers of ash from volcanos to the west, and also sandstone layers.

These layers were compressed into fairly hard layers and the wind and water from rivers and streams has been eroding the ground through the layers. Wind does a lot of the erosion and that causes the spiky sharp hill features.

The scenic road cuts through some of these hills, and then climbs to the ridgeline where you can look down into the ravines and hills. There’s one section of the area that has a very yellow large layer that’s not found in the rest of the area. I must admit I don’t know what caused the yellow color.

While driving along the ridge we came upon some longhorn sheep. They were right on the edge of the road, and weren’t bothered at all by people driving by. We got some good pictures of a male with huge horns and some smaller males, females and babies. Several were wearing radio collars so the herd could be tracked.

Here are some pictures: