INTERIOR, S.D.—Big changes are afoot at Cedar Pass Lodge, a Forever Resort and the only accommodation located inside Badlands National Park in South Dakota. The historic property, which originally opened in 1928, is adding new cabins built to LEED Gold specifications, in time for the 2012 summer season.
New features at Cedar Pass Lodge include:
• New cabins featuring wood paneling salvaged from Black Hills pine trees felled by beetles. The wood bears the distinctive “beetle-kill” markings of grey streaked wood.
• New cabins are furnished with regionally sourced handcrafted lodge pole pine furniture felled by beetle kill and repurposed wood from an old grain storage built in the 1930s that later became the warehouse used by Owenhouse Hardware, a company in Montana that is still in business today.
• An energy-efficient, on-demand hot water heater installed in each cabin.
• Compact fluorescent lighting is used throughout each cabin for energy efficiency.
• Bamboo towels will be provided for guests’ use in each cabin.
• Low-flow toilets installed to support water conservation.
• Modular cabins were manufactured locally and kept workers employed during the slow winter season.
• Recycling, reducing their impact on the environment and educating visitors of Cedar Pass Lodge will continue as part of the Lodge’s Environmental Management System in place since 2002 called Forever Earth.
• New cabins include repurposed concrete countertops.
• New cabins have an Energy Star 32-inch flat-screen TV, refrigerator, coffee maker and microwave.
• New cabins are built to LEED Gold specifications.
Cedar Pass Lodge is located near the site of the 33-million-year-old saber-tooth tiger fossil discovered in 2010 by a National Park Service junior ranger program participant, Kylie Ferguson. Paleontologists at Badlands National park plan to open a new fossil quarry, named the Saber Site, at the location of the tiger discovery this summer.
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