The Black Hills of South Dakota (1)

20-24th May: Days 42-46

Our first stop for 4 nights in this area was up in the hills in a quiet forested park called Horsethief. It had views of the rocky hillsides and every now and then a deer skipped through. It is just outside Custer State Park and near an area called Sylvan Lake which has some good hiking. Our first full day here we packed a rucksack with: clothes for all weathers (luckily), water, nut bars and a handful of Werthers Originals (the survival food of champions…) and set off to climb Black Elk Peak. This is at 7242 ft, and has a forest fire watch tower at the top. The day was cool, but sunny and it was a pleasant 1hr 45min yomp to the top, the knob in the photo below

Factoid: Formerly known as Harney Peak, this is the highest point in the USA to the east of the Rockies and the next highest point to the west of the Pyrenees.  As an additional personal fact: this is probably the furthest from the ocean that we have ever been with our feet on the ground. The geographical centre of the country is close to here.

 

We started on our return journey down the hill, trying to ignore the gathering dark clouds. Unfortunately this policy did not prevent the weather turning to custard. Sunshine turned to light hail, turned to heavy hail with thunder claps, and then the snow came. Hello? 2nd half of May over here. Happily we were well prepared and managed to maintain high spirits just long enough so that sun came back out before we got too cold and wet.

 

By the time we got back to camp it was a lovely sunny evening, and we sat out with a campfire until we ran out of wood and it got brass monkeys cold.

The next day was a definite car day as it was cold and wet. We headed south. First stop Crazy Horse. Now this is quite thing. A project of such epic proportions that it is almost unfathomable.

In 1939, as the Mount Rushmore carvings were nearing completion, a sculptor called Korczak Ziolkowski (who had been involved with Mount Rushmore) was asked by a local chieftain, Standing Bear, to create a memorial to show that ‘…the red man has great heroes, also.’

A hero was chosen: Crazy Horse having been a warrior involved in the Little Bighorn Battle and killed a while later by a US soldier. A hillside of rock was identified, a scale model sculpture designed, and the first blast was 3rd June 1942. Below is a stock photo, with the scale model. To put it into context, Crazy Horse’s face is 87ft tall.

75 years later, only the face of Crazy Horse is finished.  Ziolkowski died in the 80s, but his family are continuing the project and are now working on the pointing arm and the horse’s head. I feel a weird pang of regret that there is a very high probability that the sculpture will be nowhere finished in our lifetime. It will be a modern World Wonder.

From here we drove south through a dark monsoon to a town called Hot Springs. This does have a thermal area, and we did have our togs with us, but it was shut. We consoled ourselves with lunch, then went to other other tourist trap in town: The Mammoth Site. Now this is cool. More than a few years ago, in the days when mammoths were still common in these parts, a geological accident opened up a hole in the earth and filled it with warmish water.  This looked like a lush oasis of green in a harsh ice age environment, and the lone male mammoths would come to eat and drink from it. Unfortunately for them it had very steep sides, and they kept falling in and then couldn’t get back out. The sinkhole slowly filled up with strata of dead beasts, set in a drying out sludge which eventually solidified. Over the millennia the surrounding softer rocks eroded away turning the hole into a hump. A veritable paleontological Kinder Surprise. Millions of years later a property developer started to level the site and the digger uncovered a skeleton. Luckily the developer recognised a mammoth bone when he saw one, luckily he had contacts with a world renowned mammoth expert who was working at another site a mere 100 miles away. Luckily he didn’t feel the need to gain financially from his find.  Now the site is owned by a non-profit organisation, has had a massive roof constructed over it, and it is being slowly dug out in situ.

To date they have found the remains of 62 mammoths, all male. (It could be argued that the lady mammoths were too intelligent to walk too close to the edge of a steep sided pit of despair-however inviting). Our tour guide was a very competent 13 yr old called Michael (not sure why he wasn’t at school) and it was all very interesting. We drove home via Wind Cave National Park, and the adjoining Custer State Park.

The next day we decided to visit to Mount Rushmore. This is small compared to Crazy Horse but because it is finished and you are able to get much closer to it, it is equally as impressive. Quite an honour to have your ugly mug carved 60ft high into a rock. Most presidents fail to attain this level of respect, as we know. The Mount Rushmore project was completed between 1927 and 1941 by over 400 men. Unfortunately the sculptor Gutzon Borglum died just before the last head was dedicated. Nice work though, Gutzon.

You can drive right up to the monument, but we decided to stretch the legs again. There was a vaguely marked trail of about 3.5 miles from a nearby lake. The weather was far more clement, and with more Werthers Originals packed we walked the 2 hours each way.  Very pretty and almost deserted. The monument seems quite a pilgrimage for the Americans, and the solitude of the trail was not perpetuated once we emerged from the foliage and joined the hoards.

The weather stayed good into the evening, so we sat out around a fire again until bedtime.  Dinner was campfire cooked bacon butties. 2 of my favourite things.

The next day we moved to another camp site nearby which is right on an excellent cycle trail and close to town.