The badlands of southwestern North Dakota are within an area known as the Hell Creek Formation, a rock bed left behind by eastward-flowing rivers that once ran to an inland sea stretching from Canada south to the Gulf of Mexico. Dating back to the end of the Cretaceous period, the gullies and buttes of Hell Creek comprise one of the world's richest areas of fossilized dinosaur bones. Each summer during the 8-week dig season amateur paleontologists converge on the small town of Marmarth, on US 12 at the southern edge of the grassland, to participate in volunteer field excavation and lab work.
Coyotes, bighorn sheep, elk, sharptail grouse, pheasants and prairie dogs are some of the resident animals. Sather Dam Picnic Area, 33 miles west of Watford City via US 85 and SR 68, offers fishing; a state license is required. For further information, phone the Custer National Forest service office at (701) 227-7800 or (701) 842-2393.