THE EERIE, FASCINATING WORLD OF THE BADLANDS.

Byline: Zeke Wigglesworth Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

The French, you will recall, first started messing around in our sandbox back in the 17th century.

By the middle of the 18th century, these persistent Europeans had seen about everything there was to see west of the Alleghenies (eradicating most of the beaver in North America in the process).

So it comes as no great surprise to note that a French explorer, or maybe two, came wandering through a chunk of western South Dakota one day and chanced upon a landscape that would dismay even the most travel-hardy Gaul.

``This neighborhood is tough, a real bad land to cross,'' he said, albeit in French. (All he had to do was ask a local. The Sioux, who had moved into the Black Hills area a few years before, already had an expression to describe the area - and, guess what, it translated out as ``bad lands.'')

So the accepted name for the rugged and uncommon topography of the region, now known as Badlands National Park, became semi-scientific. ``Badlands'' now generically refers to most any landscape with elevated areas that have been severely eroded and deeply cut by ravines and small canyons. A semi-arid climate and occasional torrential downpours are also common badlands traits.

There are two protected badlands areas in the United States: the South Dakota national park (about 380 square miles) and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota (about 110 square miles).

What is most striking about the badlands is their apparent desolation. There seems to be little vegetation or animal life - just a rugged landscape of dramatic, multicolored formations of shale and limestones.

Appearances are deceiving. Badlands National Park is rife with animal life - both alive and long dead. You want a home where the deer and the pronghorn antelope play? Here they are, along with re-introduced bighorn sheep and bison, prairie dogs, coyotes, badgers, rabbits, Western meadowlarks, swifts, wrens, golden eagles, magpies, rattlesnakes.

The park is also a haven for more than 50 species of grasses, many of which are now long gone from most of the American landscape.

Badlands National Park is also the site of one of the most important fossil beds in the country. The park's soils contain one of the most extensive deposits of ancient mammal fossils dating from the Oligocene period, about 65 million years ago, including three-toed horses, sabre-toothed cats and giant pigs.

This is not a national park for all tastes. It's off the beaten path, accommodations and services are just adequate, and the terrain and climatic conditions can be hard on the body. It is a place, however, for hikers, birders, botanists and those who like wild landscapes.

If you're not an avid hiker, or are not thrilled about heat and rattlesnakes, the best way to see the wonders of the park is by taking the so-called Badlands Loop driving tour (Highway 240). It starts at the Cactus Flat entrance to the park off Interstate 90 and winds its way around (and up and down) for 40-odd miles.

Along the way are more than a dozen overlooks, every one a dazzler. At the Cedar Pass Visitor Center are a small motel, gas station and restaurant, plus the usual facilities offered by the National Park Service.

If you want to stretch your legs, try one of the shorter trails leading from the visitor center, especially the three called Door, Window and Notch (named after geological formations). The Door trail concentrates on fossil formations; Window has splendid views of the splendid desolation; and Notch leads to a great photo stop with jagged formations and a natural window in the rocks.

Hiking is available all over the park, and trails range from easy to difficult. Some of the best serious hikes are in the Sage Creek Wilderness area of the park.

The Badlands park, while worth a visit by itself, is usually combined as part of a tour of western South Dakota's other, and more major, attractions. Included are:

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, about 25 miles from Rapid City, where the faces of four American presidents are carved into a granite cliff.

Deadwood, an ``authentic'' Old West city, wall to wall with casinos and tons of hype about several local heroes including Deadwood Dick, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok. Nearby is Sturgis, where every August, thousands of Harley riders show up for their annual bash. And also nearby is Lead (pronounced leed), where you can see one of the largest open-pit gold mines in the world.

Jewel Cave National Monument, about 30 miles from Rapid City, with more than 90 miles of explored areas. It is reputed to be the fourth-largest cave in the world, and gets its name from glittering calcite deposits on the cave walls.

Wind Cave National Park, which, as the name suggests, has noticeable wind currents and is formed from the same vast limestone deposits that underpin most of the Black Hills area. It is also the location of one of the state's largest prairie dog populations.

The geology that created the caves in the area, as well as the Black Hills themselves, eventually created the badlands. Soil eroded from the mountains piled up over the eons, and then later was eroded itself, leaving the rugged escarpments and canyons that make up today's badlands.

Crazy Horse is in the process of becoming the fifth granite face in the Black Hills. It was started by Korczak Ziolkowski, who worked with Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore.

The new carving honoring the Sioux leader who led the attacks at Little Big Horn is huge - all four of the Mount Rushmore heads could fit inside the chief's head.

Completed, the sculpture will be 563 feet high and 641 feet long. Work has been going on for almost 50 years; Ziolkowski's descendants hope to finish the work by 1998. It is about 15 miles from Mount Rushmore.

Custer State Park, one of the largest state parks in the nation, adjacent to Mount Rushmore. Its 73,000 acres include excellent hiking trails and one of the largest free-ranging bison herds in the West.

The best time - and the best way - to see the Badlands is when nobody else is around. Just sit on a cliff edge, listen to the wind whistle through the arroyos, watch golden eagles soar on the thermals ... and remind yourself there are few better places to be than here.

On Location

For information about the Badlands, write Park Superintendent, Badlands National Park, Box 6, Interior, S.D. 57750; [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: The desolate landscape with its fantastical roc k formations gives South Dakota's Badlands its name.

Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service

Box: On Location (See Text)