Big Badlands Overlook sits just inside the Northeast Entrance and gives most westbound visitors their first look over the edge. It faces the eastern part of the Badlands Wall, the long erosional line that runs from near Kadoka toward Scenic. The reddish stripes in the view belong to the Scenic Member of the Brule Formation, and the darker gray beds near the base are the older Peanut Peak Member of the Chadron Formation. On clearer days Eagle Nest Butte stands on the horizon near Wanblee. The lot takes cars and buses and has an accessible viewing area and exhibits, but no restroom. A short walk leads out from the parking to the view, and it is a good place to learn what the Lakota name for this country really means.
This is the last overlook, and the end of the book. It's on your right. If I cut out when you shut the car off, tap play. The reddish stripes are about thirty-three million years old, with older gray beds at the foot of them. The rock is ancient, but the shapes aren't. Rivers only started carving this about half a million years ago, so what you're looking at is young. This country has more than one Native history. The Ponca call it the Dusty Hills, and their oral tradition still holds memories of this place. For hundreds of years the Lakota have called it mako sica. It means what it says, bad lands. French fur trappers likely carried it off as bad lands to travel across. It was never a curse. Wet clay turns slick and sticky, and the water's muddy and unsafe. It's a trail report, and it's theirs. If you've parked, stay near the car a minute. Boone has the last tale, about three minutes, and he starts on his own. You started this road on the last page, and here's the first word. Mako sica.
Photo: NPS / Ed Welsh, public domain · Public domain