When is peak fall color at Badlands National Park?

Our forecast puts peak color at Badlands National Park around 14 Oct. The four days to aim for are 13 to 16 Oct. We publish our error rate.

Badlands National Park Fall Foliage: 2026 Peak Color Forecast

Q: What trees turn color at Badlands National Park?

Quaking Aspen, Bur Oak, Cottonwood, Paper Birch, Green Ash. The Black Hills produce a colorful mix of aspen gold and birch yellow against the dark green of ponderosa pine, while Spearfish Canyon stages the most dramatic display.

Peak color14 OctAim for 13 to 16 Oct

In the park today, Sep 25Starting to turn

Higher ground turns first, so the slopes above the road lead the valley by a few days.

1 report came in from Pennington County this week, 1 of them just starting. Our date held. See the county on the map.

Still greenStartingNearly peakPeakPast peakNo fall canopy we forecastInside the line, each band of elevation is painted on its own date.

Around Badlands National Park Pennington County holds most of the park and is still green today. That’s the county as a whole, which peaks 3 days later than the park’s own stands: the park is starting to turn. Jackson County, to the east, is 9 days ahead.

By elevation The park runs from about 2,415 to 2,969 feet. That’s 3 days of season between the top and the bottom: the high stands peak around Oct 13, the low ground holds until about Oct 15, and the color comes downhill in between. The date at the top of this page is the 2,500 to 2,750 foot band.

2,750–3,000 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1340%
2,500–2,750 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1444%
2,250–2,500 ftStarting to turnpeak Oct 1513%

Height off 3DEP inside the park’s own boundary; each band carries the date our model gives that elevation, corrections and all. The percentage is how much of the park stands in it.

That’s 3 days later than our model alone would say. This September has been running warm, which shifts peak color.

The place

You drive across South Dakota expecting flat and then the ground just falls away. 244,000 acres of buttes and spires so sharply eroded they look like the planet is showing you its bones. The formations expose 75 million years of geological history in horizontal stripes. Every hour the light shifts and the whole place becomes a different photograph.

Established 1978. About 1 million/year visitors.

Plan this trip

If you can only come on certain days

Set the days you can be here. Everything under them answers for those days, not for peak.

ArrivingLeaving

Tuesday 13 October to Wednesday 14 October

You’ll find it peak color.

That's the day our forecast puts peak color here.

2,750–3,000 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 13
2,500–2,750 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 14
2,250–2,500 ftPeak colorpeak Oct 15

What turns: bur oak, green ash, hackberry, quaking aspen, plains cottonwood
Entrance: $30

What turns, and when

bur oak27%
green ash22%
hackberry13%
quaking aspen13%
plains cottonwood12%
boxelder4%

Every one of these turns yellow or gold here. The shades only tell the species apart.

Also named across South Dakota, outside what the canopy read measures here: Paper Birch.

The Black Hills produce a colorful mix of aspen gold and birch yellow against the dark green of ponderosa pine, while Spearfish Canyon stages the most dramatic display.

This forecast is built from the species that stand here, their elevation and this September’s weather, and corrected in season by cameras, foresters and our own crew. Out here we score it against NASA's satellite record of when the canopy shuts down, read inside each unit’s own boundary: two dates in three land within 12 days of it. How this map is made

All of South Dakota