Hiking through a prairie dog village

At the very end of the South scenic road (the loop is partially closed per construction), there is an old entrance to the park that was used until the interstate came through in the 1960’s. This Old East Entrance is not accessible through any formal trails, but you can cut through a very active prairie dog town to get to it. This might have been one of the coolest things we did at TRNP.

First off, the prairie dogs were abundant (many hundreds), all yipping and squeaking and hilarious. Many posed for photographs willingly.

But the bigger reason to love this trail was the very cool old entrance! The old stone building and wall really gave you the feel for its original state. Steve found the black and white photograph with cars lined up on the internet. Awesome history.