1 active Badlands alert
- ClosureNotch Trail closed for ladder repairsNotch Trail and all areas within 100 feet of the designated trail are closed; do not enter the closure area.Official details
Overview
About Red Shirt Table Overlook
Why stop
- A near-complete, colorful sequence of Badlands rock layers.
Heads up
- A remote detour from Highway 240; the best rim view takes a short walk.
Red Shirt Table Overlook is a roadside viewpoint in Badlands National Park’s western South Unit, facing a broad sweep of layered formations. The geologic section is nearly complete, so this is a good stop for seeing the Badlands’ bands of color in one view.
Parkwolf’s verdictA west-side view worth the detourMap
Where it is
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Full mapPlan your stop
Before you go
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Badlands Tour Guide
Your drive to Red Shirt Table Overlook, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Badlands National Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
See the Badlands audio tourRecorded for this place
Red Shirt Table Overlook0:00 / 0:28
“Red Shirt Table Overlook is coming up, with a broad sweep of colored rock layers in the western South Unit. Stop here if you enjoy tracing the bands across the landscape; the geologic sequence is nearly complete.”
Plays as you drive up to Red Shirt Table Overlook in the Parkwolf Badlands Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- A Tiny Tooth During a Big Job
- A Tiny Skull Changed the Family Tree
- River Sand Turned to Rock
- The Woodpecker Hunting Ants
- 116 audio storiesacross Badlands’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bison, Bighorn Sheep, Prairie Dog, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 11 trails, 34 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“We recently toured Badlands, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and more! We learned so much from this app as we toured each of these sites. The audio tours are worth the money.”
Guide
More about Red Shirt Table Overlook
Walk out to the rimThe pull-off offers a first look, but a short informal approach reaches a better view along the…
The pull-off offers a first look, but a short informal approach reaches a better view along the rim. The walk is about 0.2 mile round trip and roughly 15 minutes over mostly flat ground. Parking is available at the roadside stop; current toilet and drinking-water service aren’t confirmed, so don’t count on either here.
Read the layersFrom the rim, look across a basin of spires and banded rock.
From the rim, look across a basin of spires and banded rock. The near-complete sequence is similar to a geology stop on the Highway 240 loop, seen from a different perspective. Across the road, another badlands pocket opens into grass prairie, with the Black Hills and Black Elk Peak on the horizon.
For photos, use the junipers along the rim as foreground to give the folded slopes a sense of scale. The view across the road makes a wider frame, with prairie and distant hills.
The nameRed Shirt Table is named for Red Shirt, an Oglala Lakota leader.
Red Shirt Table is named for Red Shirt, an Oglala Lakota leader.
A west-side view worth the detourKeep it if you want a different angle on the park beyond the Highway 240 loop.
Keep it if you want a different angle on the park beyond the Highway 240 loop. It’s a remote west-side detour, best planned into a drive along the SD 40 and BIA 41 corridor rather than squeezed in as a quick extra.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Badlands
760 sightingsBisonMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
1,060 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
904 sightingsPrairie DogMost seen around 5 PMSighting map
333 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
304 sightingsMule DeerMost seen around 7 PMSighting map
87 sightingsCoyoteMost seen around 7 PMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Badlands. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
