Current Makoshika Weather
Total Length = 3.06 miles	Overall Rating = Do it!
Usage = HIKING	Moderate Trail

To the Sioux Indians, Ma-ko-shi-ka meant bad earth or bad land. The geography you’ll see here will reinforce that sentiment in this harsh and ruggedly beautiful area.

Today, as Montana’s largest state park, at 11,400 acres, Makoshika’s pine and juniper studded badland formations house the fossil remains of dinosaurs and a topsy turvy world of bizarre geological formations.

• The first trailhead encountered from the Makoshika Park entrance, the Diana Gabriel Trail, is .88 miles long and offers long distance views of Cains Coulee, dry washes, and a hadrosaur fossil excavation area. Be careful on the steps up to the overlook and fossil area, the bentonite soil tends to wash away and make for unstable structures. It’s beautiful when it forms cap rocks, but under neath your feet can be disconcerting.  

• The Cap Rock trail is .6 miles of incredible sights. From balanced cap rocks too numerous to mention to a natural arch you’ll find geography gone wild in this short stretch of trail.

• The Kinney Coulee trail takes you to the bottom of Kinney Coulee 200 feet below your starting point where you’ll see numerous bentonite oddities including cap rocks and “The Camel” an eroded structure that is reminiscent of a camel’s hump. From the bottom of the coulee return the way you came for a round trip of 1.6 miles.

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