Skip to main content

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 8; Badlands National Park and former US Route 16A on South Dakota State Route 240 t

After visiting Rockerville I continued northeast towards I-90 on US 16 and the US 16 Bypass Route of Rapid City.  I swung easterly on I-90/US Route 14 towards Badlands National Park and South Dakota State Route 240 (a former routing of SD 40 and US 16A) from I-90 exit 131.


This blog serves as Part 8 in the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip Series.  Part 7 from Rockerville, SD and US 16 can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip Part 7; Rockerville, SD the ghost town surrounded by US 16

SD 240 is an approximately 40 mile loop of I-90 which traverses through the eastern segment of Badlands National Park.  From the eastern terminus in Jackson County at I-90 exit 131 SD 240 jogs southward and has a junction with SD 248.  SD 240 continues south into Badlands National Park within a couple miles from I-90.  Upon entering Badlands National Park SD 240 runs on Badlands Loop Road comes across the Big Badlands Overlook.






Badlands National Park consists of a series of eroded buttes and pinnacles which stands over the largest undisturbed grass prairie in the United States.  Badlands was set aside as a National Monument in 1929 before being elevated to a National Park in 1978.


Hiking trails in Badlands National Park are some lacking compared to most National Parks unless you can traverse the eroded buttes.


South of the Big Badlands Overlook SD 240 descends through Cedar Pass towards the White River watershed and follows a largely western course.  There is an overlook on the Cliff Shelf Nature Trail of the White River.  Below the Cliff shelf SD 240 passes by SD 377 and the Ben Reifel Visitor Center.


On it's westward trek SD 240 passes various overlooks of the surrounding landscape as it crosses into Pennington County.  I found most of the parking areas to make decent enough short trail heads.  The path of SD 240 and the Badlands Loop Road generally follows the terrain closely dipping in/out of the buttes in the process.










At Rim Road the routing of SD 240 swings northward again out of Badlands National Park and ends at I-90 in Wall.  The Park Boundary was oddly marked by a derelict goat starring down traffic.






As stated above almost the entirety of SD 240 was part of US 16A.  From Wall US 16A split from US 16 through Badlands National Park.  At what is now SD 377 the routing of US 16A picked up the original alignment of SD 40.  Both US 16A and SD 40 continued over Cedar Pass onto the routing of SD 248.  US 16A and SD 40 met what was the main line US 16 on what is today SD 73 north of I-90.  The original alignments of US 16A and SD 40 can be seen on this 1949 South Dakota State Highway Map.

1949 South Dakota State Highway Map

My understanding is that the Badlands Loop Road was upgraded completely to gravel by 1944 but I'm not uncertain when it was signed as US 16A.  US 16A was apparently replaced by SD 240 in 1980 when US 16 was truncated to Rapid City.

USends on US 16

Part 9 of the 2016 Summer Mountain Trip Series can be found here:

2016 Summer Mountain Trip; US Route 14A in the Homestake Mining District and Spearfish Canyon

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hawaii Route 8930

Hawaii Route 8930 is a 2.5-mile State Highway on the Island of O'hau.  Hawaii Route 8930 is aligned over Kualakai Parkway over the course of its entire alignment south from Interstate H-1 to Kapolei Parkway.  Hawaii Route 8930 is one of the newest Hawaii Routes only having been completed during 2010.   This page is part of the Gribblenation O'ahu Highways page.  All Gribblenation and Roadwaywiz media related to the highway system of O'ahu can be found at the link below: https://www.gribblenation.org/p/gribblenation-oahu-highways-page.html Part 1; the history of Hawaii Route 8930 The history of Hawaii Route 8930 is brief given it is a modern facility.  Hawaii Route 8930 and what was known as "North-South Road" were built to facilitate the developing areas of Kapolei on western O'ahu.  According to hawaiihighways.com the first stage of Hawaii Route 8930 was completed from Kapolei Parkway north to Farrington Highway as a four-lane highway during November...

Madera County Road 607 and the Stockton-Los Angeles Road

Madera County Road 607 is an approximately seven-mile rural unsurfaced highway which spans from Road 600 near Raymond west to Road 29.   Road 607 west from Raymond Road Cemetery (established in 1905) is part of the Stockton-Los Angeles Road corridor surveyed in 1853. The corridor lies in the gap between Fresno Crossing at the Fresno River west to Newton's Crossing at the Chowchilla River. The Buchanan Copper Mine would be along what is now Road 607 in the namesake Buchanan Hollow during July 1863. The Buchanan Mine is thought to have once had a population of between 1,000-1,500 residents by the early 1870s. Copper prices would decline in the decade after the Civil War and much of the activity at Buchanan shifted towards cattle ranching. The last businesses in the community would shutter during World War II and it is now a true ghost town. Part 1; the history of Madera County Road 607 and the Stockton-Los Angeles Road What is now Road 607 was a component of the larger Sto...

Old NC 10 - The Central Highway: Old Fort to Black Mountain through the Royal Gorge

A unique way of tracing the remnants of the Central Highway is through the mountainous terrain of Eastern Buncombe and Western McDowell Counties.  From the east on US 70, you reach the base of Blue Ridge Mountains at the town of Old Fort.  Old Fort is a tiny rail town that the old Central Highway and now US 70 goes through.  The Central Highway can be followed via a right onto Mill Creek Road from US 70.  Follow the highway as it takes you closer to the mountains.  When Mill Creek Road bears right to head towards Andrews Geyser stay straight until the road ends at a gate.  The nearby Piney Grove Church can be used for parking.  At this point, the old Central Highway began a 3.5 mile climb of the mountain to Swannanoa Gap.  NC 10 and later US 70 travelers followed this road for over 30 years until a new and modern four lane US 70 was built to the south.  This same four lane road would eventually become Interstate 40.    The Centra...