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Published: March 25th 2012
Sylvan Lake
This artificial lake is one of Custer State Park's classic viewsToday was another day in Custer State Park.
The park has two distinct halves, one mountains and one prairie.
I saw the best of the prairie yesterday, so I headed for the mountains.
I wanted to get out of the car and climb, which meant
Harney Peak.
Harney Peak Trail
The peak is the highest mountain in the Black Hills.
As the tourist authorities love to point out, it is also the highest mountain between the Rocky Mountains and the French Pyrenees!
To the Lakota, the peak is
sacred, the Center Of All That Is.
The forces that regulate the universe meet on the peak.
Honored elders would climb the peak to receive visions of the future.
These days, park visitors climb it by the
hundreds, making it one of the most popular long distance hikes in the park.
The trail starts at
Sylvan Lake, which is created by a dam.
Behind it are exposed granite islands and hills, creating one of the parks signature scenes.
Moving away from the lake, the trail climbs through a valley with granite peaks visible in the distance.
Needles Overlook
This overlook of the Needles is less than a half hour from the trailhead! The trees here have been deliberately thinned out.
Thick forests in the Black Hills are vulnerable to
pine beetle infestations, which are slowly killing large areas of trees.
After a half hour, the trail crests a ridge.
Thin granite spires are now visible through the trees.
They are one of the Black Hills signature areas, the Needles.
Walking along the ridge, the trail reaches an overlook with a huge view of the area.
The Needles stretch for a long way.
In the middle distance is a round granite mountain called
Little Devil’s Tower.
Behind the Needles, even more peaks are visible.
On the far right side of the view, Harney Peak appears for the first time.
It looked like a wide granite mountain with a small tower on the top.
From the ridge, the trail starts to drop.
This stretch provides one of the area’s treats.
The trail runs right along a series of granite towers.
Granite peaks with pine trees in front of them, the classic vision of the west.
Soon enough, the trail reaches a valley and crosses
Stream Valley
A lush, pine filled stream valley on the ways to Harney Peak a stream.
The valley has lots of bushes and other plants.
The trail then follows the stream up the valley.
More granite rocks, the lower flanks of Harney Peak, are visible along the valley.
Eventually, the trail leaves the stream and starts to climb again on a series of switchbacks.
This part was a little depressing, because most of the trees were dead from pine beetles.
The trail swung around the backside of the mountain, and the trees were alive again.
Pretty mountain wildflowers started appearing along the side of the trail.
It reached another overlook, this one of the mountains to the west.
Instead of rock spires, mountain summits stretched into the distance.
From the overlook, the trail pushes on to the summit.
More dead trees appeared.
It reaches a set of rock stairs.
These stairs are the final climb.
The mountain is completely forested except for the actual peak at the top.
The rock stairs lead to a set of metal stairs up the side of a cliff, reaching the summit ridge.
From here,
Harneys Peak, looking southwest
Welcome to the Center of All That Is. This southwest looking view shows a perfect view of the Needles. a quick scramble led to the tower.
The stone tower was built as a fire lookout in the 1930s.
These days, it gives a spectacular view of the Black Hills.
The Needles were clearly visible to the east, the backside of Mount Rushmore was visible among peaks to the west, and the Crazy Horse caving (more on this later) was visible to the southwest.
Granite domes and spires peaked out everywhere from the pine forest that gives the area its name.
Unfortunately, the tower also gave a very nice view of a grey cloud racing up the mountain.
When the cloud started to flash, I knew I had to
get out of there.
The exposed summit of Harney’s Peak is a natural lightning rod.
I made it down the rock stairs to safety in the trees just before the storm hit.
Lightning close up is a very different experience to most storms.
The entire area turns white for a split second, then a crackling noise like static electricity, and then a huge boom that echoed across the hills.
I kept pushing down the trail.
I reached the
Harney Peak view, looking northeast
Welcome to the Center of All That Is. This view looks northeast toward Iron Mountain. first overlook just in time to watch lightning strike the next peak over.
Yikes!
Soon afterward, the storm was over.
The way back was pretty much the reverse of the way up.
The valley portion looked much better going back.
In this direction, the granite peaks of the initial ridge towered over the surrounding trees, giving a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.
Soon enough, I was back at the trailhead.
Needles Highway
My next target for today was the other scenic road through the park, the
Needles Highway.
As the name should imply, it goes to and through the granite spires called the
Needles.
The early portion follows a stream.
While very pretty, it can’t compare to what comes afterward.
The one notable feature in this stretch is the Hole In the Rock, a big crack in a granite cliff that people can scramble through.
Soon enough, the highway begins to climb.
Every corner provides another view of the Needles, which move ever closer.
The road goes through a tunnel, which is even
Needle's Eye crack
The narrow rock crack cars must pass through at Needle's Eye. I set up the camera ahead of time to get this picture safely. smaller than the ones on Iron Mountain Road.
It reaches another overlook, which gives a vast view of the Black Hills.
Soon after, the road enters the actual Needles, weaving its way through narrow spires of granite.
Far more of them appear in the distance.
Once again, a convertible is a double edged sword, as the stupendous scenery makes paying attention to the highway nearly impossible.
All of this is just the warm up for the big scenic highlight, the Needle’s Eye.
The first indicator is a sign warning of an incredibly tiny tunnel.
The tunnel empties into a crack between two rocks so narrow the car barely fits.
On the far side lies a playground of rock spires.
One has a long thin hole through it giving the look of a sewing needle, hence the name.
Needle’s Eye begs exploration.
Expect to see lots of people in the area, climbing on rocks, taking pictures of the spires all round, taking pictures of cars in the tunnel and (most dangerously) taking pictures of themselves in front of the tunnel.
Those with rock
Needle's Eye
The rock that gives Needle's Eye its name (although drivers can be forgiven for thinking otherwise) scrambling ability and no fear of tight spaces can climb to a small rock shelf directly in front of the crack, which has an unbeatable view of the crack and tunnel.
The place feels like any other park attraction, to the point people forget it’s actually a road.
Parking here is pretty tough too.
Drive carefully.
After Needle’s Eye, the road passes some lakes.
All of them, like Sylvan Lake, are artificial.
They look good anyway.
The road finally reaches the top of a U shaped valley.
The road descends the side of the valley by a series of incredibly tight switchbacks.
The speed limit is only 15 MPH!
Those who can’t mountain drive (see
Into the Mountains) should prepare to destroy their brakes in this stretch.
Once on the floor, the road passes through the valley with views of rocky summits all around.
Soon afterward, it ends at a normal highway.
Watch it from a motorcycle:
Crazy Horse Memorial
My final site for the day was the
Crazy Horse Memorial.
The memorial is being carved on Thunderhead
Needle's Eye fun
People scrambling through the rock playground that is Needle's Eye Mountain, and has been in progress for over sixty years.
The scale is almost beyond comprehension.
When finished, it will be the largest statue in the world, and will serve as a memorial to all Native Americans in the United States.
The project
began with a chief named Standing Bear and the sculptor
Korczak Ziolkowski in 1940.
Standing Bear saw the Mount Rushmore memorial, and wanted something to show, in his words, “the white man will know that the red man had great heroes also”.
Ziolkowski had been one of Borglum’s assistants on Mount Rushmore, and he agreed to take the job.
He started blasting in 1948.
Standing Bear and other Native American leaders decided to make the memorial a statue of
Crazy Horse, a Lakota chief during the Great Sioux War with the US Army over the Black Hills.
He was the only chief during that era to never sign a treaty.
He also designed the battle plan that destroyed George Armstrong Custer’s cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
His death at Fort Robinson (see
This Hard Land) essentially ended the war.
Crazy Horse Memorial
Crazy Horse Memorial on Thunderhead Mountain, in progress for over sixty years. Look for the chalk outlines on the right, site of the current work. Ziolkowski and Standing Bear created an unusual condition for the memorial.
They decided they would finance it
exclusively with donations and admission fees.
The memorial belongs to Native Americans, and taking money from the government that oppressed them would sully that.
The natural consequence, though, was that construction took place very slowly.
For almost three decades, the only people working on it were Ziolkowski and his wife.
He bought an ancient air compressor to run his drills, now called the Kaput.
It got that name because half the time it would break before Ziolkowski could climb the mountain and start drilling holes for dynamite.
Eventually, he got better equipment.
To this day, virtually all supplies are donated.
The work has
outlasted its initial creator.
When Ziolkowski died in 1982, his wife took over the project.
Seven of their ten children are also involved.
A number of grandchildren have since joined the work too.
The statue these days looks like a long thin wall sticking out of a mountain.
Crazy Horse’s
face is visible near the top of the wall.
Where My Dead Lie Buried
Crazy Horse model and carving. To get this photo, stand far back from the model and use very deep focus. It is four times the size of one of the heads on Mount Rushmore.
A hole exists in the wall, which will ultimately become the space between Crazy Horse’s arm and the top of his horse.
A large
museum complex sits near the base of the mountain.
It’s divided into multiple parts.
One tells the story of Crazy Horse’s life, with many artifacts he actually owned.
I found it interesting because the story is told from the Lakota point of view, even though the actual content is the same as the Journey Museum (see
Tourists in a Sacred Land).
Another part has several rooms of Plain’s Indians artifacts, including multiple tipis.
Above this hang over
twenty flags representing various tribes.
The next part contains Ziolkowski’s sculpture studio.
He created many other sculptures between working on the mountain, and the studio has many of the models.
A pair of battling horses is the most famous.
The final part is on the carving itself.
It has pictures of the mountain over the decades, which show just how slow the work is.
It has a description of the
current work, which is as intricate
Crazy Horse artifacts
Items owned by Lakota chief Crazy Horse as running a strip mine.
It has a box of rock blasted off the mountain, where visitors can buy pieces to take home.
Outside the museum sits Ziolkowski’s original model for the carving.
The model shows Crazy Horse on his horse walking out of the mountain.
He is pointing to the Black Hills, “where my dead lay buried”.
A famous photo uses forced perspective to show the model and the mountain on the same scale, to show what the work will look like when done.
Replicating it requires standing rather far back from the model, and then using deep focus to get it to fill the frame.
Crazy Horse Laser Show
While the work continues, the flat wall of the mountain forms one of the greatest projection screens ever known.
The museum takes full advantage by showing a laser show every night called
Legends in Light.
It starts with various Native American chants as the mountain is lit different colors.
Flags and symbols of various tribes are then projected.
This dissolves to Crazy Horse riding across the plains, eventually lining up exactly with how
Crazy Horse lit up
Crazy Horse memorial lit up at the start of the laser show. the carving will look when it is finished.
The next part is Ziolkowski getting the commission and working on the mountain.
This, in turn, dissolves to a long sequence of Native American scenes and symbols, many related to Plains Indians legends.
The final part is a tribute to Native American war veterans, including the famous Navaho Code Talkers from World War II.
The show ends, once again, with Crazy Horse.
The show from 2005 is online. Its slightly different from the version I saw.
On the whole, I found the show less satisfying than the one at Stone Mountain (see
Where Iron is Forged and Men Are Destroyed).
The stage is much bigger, but it’s also much further away.
The enormous scale simply doesn’t come across well after dark.
Stone Mountain also had many more effects, such as the fireworks.
Tonight, I got a lesson on the usefulness of technology even for rustic ends.
I got out of the Crazy Horse Memorial late enough that I had problems finding a place to stay.
Most campgrounds, commercial or otherwise, had already closed for the night.
Crazy Horse and mountain
Laser light verson of Crazy Horse on the memorial (look for the light up mountain face near the feather) A crucial internet search revealed a solution.
The
Kampground of America (KOA) network is luxurious by camping standards; their campgrounds feature things usually found at hotels, like pools and business centers.
I discovered they also feature after hours check in, and a handy
website showing which areas still had open sites.
The price for this convenience is rather high for a camping spot, but tonight it was worth it.
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