Castle Trail is the only official trail in Badlands National Park longer than a mile. Everything else here is a boardwalk or a short scramble. This is the one real hike, and the one that puts you inside the formations instead of looking at them from a car park.
The essentials
- Distance: 5.2 miles one way, or about 10 miles if you walk back
- Elevation gain: roughly 305 feet across the whole trail, so it is almost flat
- Difficulty: easy underfoot, but long and fully exposed
- East trailhead: the Door, Window and Notch parking area
- West trailhead: the Fossil Exhibit Trail area
- Water on the trail: none
- Shade on the trail: none
- Dogs: not allowed
The problem most people hit at mile three
The two trailheads are five miles apart. Walk it one way and it is a comfortable afternoon, but your car is now five miles behind you.
That leaves three choices, and most visitors make the third one by accident:
- Walk it out and back, around 10 miles with no shade and no water
- Bring two vehicles and leave one at each end
- Turn around partway, usually without having decided to
None of that is difficult. It just needs deciding before you set off, not at mile three with an empty bottle.
What the walking is actually like
Castle Trail surprises people by being flat. If you are picturing a climb, this is not it. What it is instead is a walk through mixed-grass prairie with the formations rising around you.
That matters more than it sounds. Most visitors only ever see the Badlands as bare eroded rock from an overlook. Out here you are walking through the grassland the rock sits in, which is the actual living ecosystem and the reason anything survives in this landscape at all.
The route is marked with numbered posts. Footing is uneven in places and the surface is the same soft, crumbly material as the rest of the park, so closed shoes with grip are not optional.
Wildlife on the trail
Castle Trail is one of only three places the National Park Service names for bighorn sheep, alongside Pinnacles Overlook and Big Badlands Overlook. It is the only one of the three that puts you on foot in their terrain rather than watching from a pull-off. Pronghorn turn up regularly on the prairie sections.
How to actually spot them: bring binoculars, stop walking, and scan slowly. Bighorn are almost exactly the colour of the rock. Pay attention to small patches of grass and scrub, because that is what they are there for and that is where they will be. Sweeping a whole cliff in ten seconds is why most people conclude there is nothing on it.
How close is too close: keep at least 100 feet from wildlife, which is what the park requires, and more when the situation calls for it. If an animal is somewhere with no escape route, such as a ledge or a closed drainage, do not approach at all. Its only way out is past you.
Shorter ways to do it
You do not have to commit to the full length.
- Saddle Pass Trail, a half-mile spur climbing steeply from the main park road, joining Castle Trail about two miles from its western end. The fastest way on. Genuinely steep, and miserable when wet.
- Medicine Root Trail, an alternative path through the middle third that turns the walk into a loop, so you are not retracing your steps.
- Out and back from either end, walk as far as you feel like and turn round. The first mile from the eastern trailhead gets you into the formations quickly.
Conditions to take seriously
Water and heat. There is no shade and no water anywhere on this trail, and the rock radiates heat back at you. Carry more than you think you need. In midsummer, start early or leave it until late afternoon.
Wet clay. Badlands gumbo goes slick and heavy after rain, sticks to boots in weighty clumps and removes all grip. It can stay that way for anything from a few hours to several days, depending on rainfall, sun and heat. Saddle Pass in particular is not worth attempting on a wet day.
Rattlesnakes. Seen from time to time. Watch where you put your feet. If you see one, stay calm and back slowly away to a safe distance and you will be fine.
Storms. They build fast here. If you hear thunder, get off the exposed ground, because you are the tallest thing on it.
Hiking it with a guide
We hold a National Park Service permit to guide hiking in Badlands National Park, and Castle Trail is where we take guests who want to walk rather than sightsee from the road.
The practical advantage is the one this page opens with: with a guide, the shuttle problem disappears. You walk the trail one way, the 5.2 miles rather than the 10, and your transport is waiting at the other end. No second vehicle, no doubling back, no turning round early because the water ran out.
Water, snacks and binoculars come as standard, and every departure is private to your group, so the pace is yours.
Call 605-252-9100 to ask about adding Castle Trail to a tour, or see the Wildlife Tour, Sunset and Golden Hour Tour and Stargazing Tour if you would rather see the park without the walking.