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 Toadstool Rock
Why stop
- A distinctive hoodoo with a clear geology story.
Map
Where it is
Loading the Badlands map
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 Toadstool Rock, 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
Toadstool Rock0:00 / 0:19
“Toadstool Rock is coming up, a mushroom-shaped hoodoo you can see from the road. It's worth a quick pause if you enjoy unusual rock shapes.”
Plays as you drive up to Toadstool Rock in the Parkwolf Badlands Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Fossil Exhibit Trail
- Kylie's Saber-Tooth Discovery
- The Horn That Sheds Its Cover
- Saddle Pass Trailhead
- 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 Toadstool Rock
A quick roadside stopToadstool Rock is a hoodoo in Badlands National Park, with a hard cap balanced on a narrow…
Toadstool Rock is a hoodoo in Badlands National Park, with a hard cap balanced on a narrow column of softer rock. It is easy to see from the road and works as a short stop to look at the landform and its geology. The National Park Service lists auto parking and a scenic/photo spot, but does not name the road or describe the parking layout.
Read the cap and pedestalThe cap is a boulder of well-cemented river-channel sediment from the Sharps Formation, dated…
The cap is a boulder of well-cemented river-channel sediment from the Sharps Formation, dated to 30–26 million years ago. Beneath it, the softer mudstone of the Scenic Member of the Brule Formation is 33.7–32 million years old. The contrast is what keeps the cap perched while the material below it erodes faster.
Why it looks like a toadstoolA hoodoo forms when a large, resistant block rests on softer rock that wears away more quickly,…
A hoodoo forms when a large, resistant block rests on softer rock that wears away more quickly, leaving a mushroom-like shape. For a photo, keep both the cap and its narrow pedestal in frame; together they show what makes this small rock formation distinctive.
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.
