Badlands KOA Campground, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Interior, South Dakota
20 July 2022
Marc- This morning we headed West to the Black Hills to visit Custer State Park and the Mt. Rushmore National Monument. It began with a drive across rolling grasslands to the Pondersoa Pine forests of the Black Hills. We entered the Hills by way of Custer State Park (71,000 acres of Western wilderness with untold numbers of wildlife including bison, deer, burros, big horn sheep and mountain lions. I was beginning to wonder about this place after driving half of the loop roads without seeing anything. We encountered burros in the road as we came around a bend. Sue decided to get out and befriend them. These burros are very friendly. A few miles further on in an area of grasslands mixed with some forest we came upon a herd of bison and a few of them blocking the road. Sue took some great photos of the bison. Many calves were among the herd (a ranger told us 400 calves were born this year). Eventually I drove around the big male bison in the road and he grunted at Sue as we passed (there was no way that I was going to stop for photos with our new truck). Several miles later we came upon another herd of bison who were not blocking the road. Some time later we saw a deer feeding on a hill by the road. There was another herd of bison just lying around the grasslands a little further on.
In the Northern part of Custer State Park we entered the Needles Highway. This area is quite mountainous (highest peak is Black Elk at 7,242) and the highway has switchbacks and tunnels (most only about 8 feet wide and 9 feet tall and only one way at a time) for a two way road. This made the passage with our truck an adventure. Mirrors had to be retracted for the tunnels and we really had to be careful on the tight curves. South Dakota also does not believe in putting up many guardrails even with steep drop offs. The scenery is fantastic with granite spires or needles reaching for the sky with Ponderosa pine and several lakes below.
After exiting the Park we entered the Black Hills National Forest and visited Mt. Rushmore. The amount of work that went into creating these faces on the mountainside is formidable.
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