Antler Butte

Seen from near the crossing of Sage Creek. To reach the summit, I scrambled up the dirt slopes, digging in with my fingers a little, and then followed the line of trees that climbs up and right. In this kind of terrain, which is often loose and very steep (these slopes are, in fact, much steeper than they appear in this picture), I generally find that if the land can support trees, human feet have a fighting chance on it. To descend, I followed one of the gullies on the left, but that had its share of bad footing, tight squeezes, stemming and straddling, and tricky Class 4 stuff. Most people will want to go back down using the "trees" route. Badlands National Park, SD-- June 2010