Buffalo Gap National Grasslands

The Buffalo Gap National Grasslands embrace much of the Badlands National Park and adjoin the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  You can see the extent of the Grasslands in this map:

On our drive into Badlands National Park, we drove through southern portions of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.  We could tell that they are aptly named, because herds of wild bison range freely in the Grasslands:

There are places where the Badlands NP loop road adjoins the Grasslands, and bison loll about where tourists drive or walk:

Here is a view of the Grasslands to the north and east of the Badlands --

This is a view of the route Chief Big Foot led his people from the grasslands to the northeast of the Badlands to the grasslands lying southwest:

And this is the view they would have had as they came over Bigfoot Pass:

Less than 2% of the original native, tallgrass prairie grasslands remain in the U.S.  The U.S. Forest Service, within the Department of Agriculture, is charged with stewarding those grasslands that have been designated for protection.  Slowly and steadily, the Forest Service is attempting to preserve and reintroduce native plant and animal species to areas that have seen radical change due to cattle ranching and farming.

Within the prairie, where there is enough moisture, trees can grow, although they are usually relatively small and hold on tenuously:

Get a ways out on the grassland prairie, and the Badlands look like a city rising on the horizon:

We hadn't spent much time thinking about the National Grasslands until this visit to the Badlands. We learned that the only National Grasslands Visitor Center is located near the national park in Wall, South Dakota.  We decided to drive over and see what we could learn:

What we found most interesting is that there are only 21 National Grasslands, including the Midewin Prairie Reserve in Illinois (not pictured on the map below).  The large majority are located, naturally enough, in the Great Plains, but there are a few in Western states as well:

Many of the Grasslands resulted from land the U.S. repurchased from homesteaders who abandoned their homestead claims due to hardships such as the '30's Dust Bowl, but others were acquired from the U.S. military after World War II when the areas were no longer needed for munitions ranges or the like.

Each Grassland has its own unique history and rationale for preservation.  Likewise, the ecosystem and wildlife in each Grassland is unique.  This intrigues us!  We see that several of the Grasslands lie along our intended routes during early fall of 2015 and 2016, so we hope to visit them, see what makes each area unique, and see how they differ from the National Forests that we have become so used to tramping on our hikes.