Meandering Around The Medicine Root Loop Trail in Badlands National Park
The Medicine Root Loop Trail is a 4 mile loop trail located inside Badlands National Park in South Dakota.
You can start the trail where it connects with the Castle Trail near the Old Northeast Road. You can also reach the trail from the end of Saddle Pass Trail where it intersects with Castle Trail.
The majority of this trail is pretty flat and takes you through a rolling mixed grass prairie landscape. While hiking you also get to enjoy the classic views of the Badlands all around you that the park is famous for.
The trail is really easy to follow, just keep a look out for the green posts marking the way.
Cactus and rattlesnakes are common here though, so be careful where you step. Prairie dogs and bighorn sheep are also frequent visitors in the area.
During our hike, we got the opportunity to watch three large rams climbing over rocks and just chilling in the shade. It was pretty cool.
When you are hiking the Medicine Root Loop Trail part of it actually travels on the Castle Trail.
The Castle Trail is the longest in the park and is five miles one way. Most of the landscape is what you will see on the Medicine Loop trail as well.
We didn’t walk the whole Castle Trail, because ten miles takes a while to walk. We have pets (which aren’t allowed on any trails in the park) so we couldn’t leave them alone at camp that long.
If you have multiple vehicles though, you could park a vehicle at each end and then hike the whole trail. Five miles takes a lot less time to walk and it’s the entirety of the trail anyways.
If you decide to take on either of these hikes be sure to carry plenty of water with you. There is practically no shade on this trail and that sun really gets hot after it’s been beating down on you for an hour.
Besides the heat, this is an easy hike through some amazing landscape that doesn’t take too much time out of your day.
Badlands is an open-hike park which means you don’t need to stay on the trail. There is plenty of area for you to explore on this hike and a ton of rocks to climb as well.
If you do go off trail just remember where the trail is. Wandering around lost for the afternoon wouldn’t be much fun.
If you do start at the Saddle Pass trailhead just know that it’s a steep quarter-mile hike to reach the Medicine Trail intersection (click on the link for my post on that trail).
If you start near the Old Northeast Road be sure to check out the views from Saddle Pass when you reach the intersection though. You won’t be disappointed.
