Little Missouri State Park Overlook

The badlands here are the work of the Little Missouri River, which over long ages has cut down through soft layers of clay, sandstone, and lignite coal laid down when this region was a warmer, wetter lowland. As the river and its side streams eroded the land, they left behind the buttes, spires, and knife-edged ridges that give the badlands their broken, otherworldly look.

The rock is banded in tans, grays, reds, and blacks, the colors of different ancient layers exposed by erosion. In places the ground still holds the black seams of lignite coal, and where those seams have burned underground over time, they have baked the surrounding clay into hard red scoria. The whole landscape is a record of deep time laid open to the sky.

This is part of the homeland of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, the MHA Nation, whose reservation lies along Lake Sakakawea to the north, as well as country ranged by the Dakota and Lakota. The nearby Killdeer Mountains were the site of an 1864 battle during the U.S. Army's campaigns against the Dakota, and they remain a place of deep significance to the tribes of the region.

For generations before the parks and ranches, the badlands and the Killdeer Mountains offered shelter, game, and sacred ground to the peoples of the Northern Plains. The land here still feels close to that older world, wild and largely untouched, a country that has resisted easy settlement.

Little Missouri is best known as a horse park, and its trails were laid out with riders in mind, winding down from the rim into the badlands canyons and along the river bottoms. Outfitters and horse camps make it a destination for riders, though the trails are open to hikers willing to take on rough, primitive terrain.

This is not a place for a quick roadside stop. The rewards come to those who walk or ride down into the maze, where the buttes rise around you and the sky narrows to a strip overhead. It is demanding country, remote and lightly maintained, so a good map, plenty of water, and sure footing are essential.

The badlands support the hardy wildlife of this dry country: mule deer and pronghorn on the ridges, coyotes and bobcats in the coulees, prairie rattlesnakes in the warm months, and golden eagles and hawks riding the updrafts over the buttes. Songbirds and grouse live in the sage and grass.

Spring and fall are the best times to explore, with mild temperatures for hiking and riding and the badlands at their most colorful in the low, slanting light. Summer can be very hot and dry in this exposed country, so early starts and plenty of water are the rule. Winter is cold, quiet, and often impassable on the primitive trails.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.