Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park — Attraction in Scott City

Long hike, little to do.

I’m always up for a trail walk. Beautiful scenery, quiet, and way off the beaten path. This place is super new, so in its infancy, there’s really not much to offer. Read on for the low down.

The bathrooms were down due to a “water supply” issue. I feel like most of this was pumped up more than really what it’s worth. We will get to that in a minute.

The 5 dollar parking fee is standard at most Kansas state parks. If you renew your tags via online you can include the Kansas parks passport for 15 bucks. So already mine paid for a third of it. It enables you to travel to all parks without paying for the vehicle entree fee.

So let’s cut to it. 2 trails. Trail 1 is about 30-40 minute walk one way. Turn around time is dependent on how quick you wanna get back to the car for some grub or a drink. There’s a few park benches to pop a squat and catch your breath. This trail is up too and an over view of the whole valley.

Trail 2 is dependent on a park ranger to give you a guided tour, down into the valley. This is mainly private land in partnership with the state. Again this place is only 2 years old at the time of this writing. This also ensures you aren’t climbing, or digging up fossils out in yonder. Millions of years ago this area was under water from the oceans.

Overall... Really not much to do. I mean just walk. I mean if you wanna view then this is a good one. But I feel like they tried to buff it up quite a bit. I mean overall the weeds have signs, like they are some precious commodity when really they aren’t. View is nice, but I mean as park this fails big time. In my opinion Castle Rock (AKA the Chalk Pyramids) are across the street (well across the highway you turn into to get here) and much more cooler. I mean you can get right up in them. Although it is on private land, I think it is fairly nicer than this park.

Good luck on your...

This was honestly the most disappointing State Park/anything I've been to. We went on a road trip/camping trip from Missouri to the Grand Canyon over 9 days, going through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and back up through Utah, Colorado and finally Kansas. We went to 7+ National Parks and other State Parks/National Monuments and hiked in all of them and this was the final stop on the way from Colorado Springs to Joplin, MO on the 9th day. We added an hour on to our already 10+ hours driving time for the day to go here. The trails just lead you to two overlooks that are far away from the formations, you're not allowed to even walk down through the "badlands" or even get near any of the structures. You're so far away that the pictures don't even look cool. If you're driving right past it for some reason then yeah I'd stop but if you have to go out of your way literally at all, I would skip it. Not impressed with the set up, this park definitely needs work. There's not even signage leading you to the park if you didn't already intend on going there you'd never find it. As possibly the only interesting thing in the entire state of Kansas, I'd be working on promoting it and making people aware of it and making an actual trail that let's you go into the badlands not just take pictures from a...

Went hiking on this trail on June 2nd around 11am. It was already getting warm with a brisk south wind. There is no shade to speak of, so bring a hat and sunscreen.

The trail is easily followed and the views are exceptional (for Kansas). Lots of flowers in bloom. We saw some swifts and raptors. Someone in my group even saw a snake, but I don't know what kind.

Because it is Kansas, there is almost no elevation on this trail to speak of.

Trip out and back on the longer trail took an hour and 2 minutes. That's with a group of 14 people, stopping to take pictures.

There were some people on the trail. It wasn't too crowded.

The pass to pay for parking was very confusing. Not intuitive at all. Must use cash. No option for a card.

We didn't even pay. We risked it. We'll send our money in via the mail once we get home. I felt bad, but had no cash on me.

It's a great little hike, especially for people who don't hike often, and for kids who are not used to long...