Toadstool Geologic Park

Oglala National Grassland (US Forest Service) · Crawford, Nebraska

Toadstool Geologic Park is a small patch of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland in the far north-west corner of Nebraska, roughly 15 to 20 miles north-west of Crawford, managed by the US Forest Service. Wind and water have carved soft grey clay and siltstone, laid down roughly 30 million years ago, into gullies, ridges and a pale moonscape, and where a harder slab of sandstone sits on a softer column the result is a toadstool: a mushroom-shaped pillar with a flat cap. A loop trail of about a mile winds through the formations from the campground, past fossil trackways left by ancient animals in the old mud, and a reconstructed sod house near the trailhead shows how homesteaders lived on the treeless plains. The park is quiet and remote, with a small campground, vault toilets, no drinking water and no shade, and the last miles in are gravel that turns to slick, impassable gumbo after rain. It is an hour or two, not a whole day, but it pairs well with Fort Robinson and the Pine Ridge. It is on Mountain time, an hour behind Omaha.

Toadstool Road (Forest Road 902), Crawford, Nebraska, 69339, United States

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The typical pattern: the park and campground are open all year, day and night, with no gate and no staff on site; fees are paid at a self-service station. Hudson-Meng has been open only in the warm season, often roughly late May to early September, on limited days and hours, and has had long closures; check. The Forest Service office in Chadron keeps weekday business hours. The traps that ruin a day are driving in on a wet day and sticking in gumbo, arriving at midday in summer when the heat and glare are brutal, reaching Hudson-Meng on a day it is shut, and forgetting the Mountain time zone and missing the sunset light. Confirm current times before relying on them.

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