The Window Trail is a 500 foot long boardwalk that leads to, in the words of the trailhead kiosk, "a secret badlands window where the awesome wounds of erosion have laid the land open." The boardwalk is basically level. Although it doesn't have handrails, it does have a raised edge to keep wheelchairs on the boardwalk. This ADA-accessible path provides extraordinary, close-up views of the badlands that just aren't possible from inside a vehicle.
There are two trailheads for the short walk. Both of them are located near the southern end of the large parking area located between milepost 2.5 and 2.8 on the Badlands Loop Road. Heading east on the Badlands Loop Road, the trailheads are 2.0 miles beyond the Ben Reifel Visitor Center.
We walked the trail in August 2017.
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| Main trailhead |
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| Alternate trailhead |
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| Prairie Sunflower (Helianthus petiolaris) |
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| Bench |
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| View from the bench |
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| View to the right from the boardwalk |
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| View to the left |
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| Caprock seems suspended in this view to the left |
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| View to the right |
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| Fence and benches at the end of the boardwalk |
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| View from the "window" |
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| Detail of the sedimentary layers |
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| View into the eroded canyon |
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View northeast of the Door Trail,
Big Badlands Overlook,
and Northeast Entrance Station |
An entrance fee of $20 admits all the passengers of a single vehicle for seven consecutive days to Badlands National Park. A fee of $10 applies to motorcyclists. Other entrance fee options include a Badlands National Park Annual Pass for $40, an Every Kid in a Park 4th Grade Pass for free, and a variety of America the Beautiful - National Parks and Federal Recreational Lands Passes providing access to most national park, national forest, and BLM fee areas
- Annual Pass for $80
- Military Pass for free
- Lifetime Senior Pass for $80 or $20 annually for those age 62 and older
- Access Pass for free for visitors with a permanent disability
The park website is
https://www.nps.gov/badl.
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