Badlands Series (2): Camping in Badlands
6/13/21 post-covid life is awesome! Weekend: rock climbing and some other crazy stuff, Mon: Frisbee league, Tue: extreme bootcamp, Wed: oh sweet Wed, chilling!! Thur (play some more outside), Fri (play some more outside) … My face is alike charcoal, my legs are alike broken. Sssssssshamelessly pretend young, haha!
Rocky mountain starts using time-permit entry last year, and all the tickets are sold out fast. I am not able to compete with the bot to get tickets! What should I do with my campsite in Ester Park?!?! (I AM CRYING)
I was lucky to get the campsite inside the Badlands national park (you should definitely book the campsite even months before your trip). There is a KOL campsite not far away, which is also a good choice to visit Bandlands. Morning and sunset time are amazing on the campsite, here is my view of waking up in the morning:
Here are the views of my cooking time:
Night-time exploration: When I was there, everyday is cloudy. But even with the clouds, you can see the beautiful stars full of the sky!! Night-time badlands are very scary. There are no people but shadows, but it is fun to get out if you have a group of cool friends.
night-mode cell phone picture comes out like this, lol 
Camping equipment: The Badlands campsite has 2 bathrooms and 1 shower, but because of the covid and going with a kid, I have updated all the camping equipment this year. This is our bath room and shower, and they work (not ideal but good enough) 🙂
This is the bed configuration to save the tent space, not gonna work for honeymoon trip though :D. There were two very heavy thunderstorms when we were there. You do need a big tent to lock healthly inside for hours.
This time, I tried some down sleep bag (bought it in case later I want to go backpacking and it is indeed super light). It is marked 15F, but I was frozen at night when the outside temperature is around 30F. Advice here, buy a warm sleeping bag possible! Starting mid/late-May, Badlands warm up fast, good time to visit!
Other stuffs: I found hangers are useful but easily forgotten. This kind of cart can be used as a closet. This bucket is useful too, as the water can be far from your campsite. Badlands does not allow campfire, so bring the cooking facilities … Big (and popup) tent and chairs are pleasant if you can fit in your vehicle. This kind of box can be used as a trashcan …
