The Twisted and Tangled Landscape of South Dakota Badlands

This twisted and tangled landscape is the Badlands of South Dakota. Those white lines are thousands of rivulets, washes,  creeks and streams. The larger creek on the top left of the image is called Squaw Humper Creek.   

Badlands National Park (Lakota: Makȟóšiča[3]) is a national park in southwestern South Dakota that protects 242,756 acres (379.306 sq mi; 98,240  Archaeological records combined with oral traditions indicate that   these people camped in secluded valleys where fresh water and game  were  available year round. Eroding out of the stream banks today are  the  rocks and charcoal of their campfires, as well as the arrowheads  and  tools they used to butcher bison, rabbits, and other game.  ha)[1] of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires blended with the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the United States.  Continue reading more here: (Research Source) 

For 11,000 years, First Nations Native Americans have used this area for their hunting grounds. Long before the Lakota were the little-studied paleo-Indians, followed by the Arikara people. Their descendants live today in North Dakota as a part of the Three Affiliated Tribes.   

From the top  of the Badlands Wall,   they could scan the area for enemies and wandering herds. If hunting   was good, they might hang on into winter, before retracing their way to   their villages along the Missouri River. By one hundred and fifty years ago, the Great Sioux Nation  consisting of seven bands including the Oglala Lakota, had displaced  the other tribes from the northern prairie. Continue reading more here: (Research Source) 

I lensed this intensely abstract image while exploring the wilderness areas around western South Dakota. 

This image is from my ongoing project in which I am trying to raise  awareness of the 47% of the USA and 90% of Canada that remain  unpopulated wilderness.   

Where Eagles Fly - The American Wilderness Expedition is my personal  mission to introduce people to these amazing locations that surround us.   

If you like what you see here, upvote then resteemit so that others may experience these wondrous places as well.   Yehaw!!