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Published: April 16th 2011
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Well we arrived safe and sound at a small town called Hot Springs in South Dakota. We had booked a morning at the Black Hills wild horse sanctuary and awoke to find a beautiful blue sky day except for one minor problem ---- that being the 4 inches of snow that had fallen overnight. So we wrapped up warm wearing all fifteen layers of clothing and set off. The Black hills wild horse sanctuary was set in the 1980s when a guy was visiting a ranch and found a herd of rounded up wild horses which were too old for adoption and were to be destroyed. He decided that he would buy some land and release these horses onto this property and so it started. There are now about 3 or 4 hundred mustangs running wild on this ranch. The ranch runs tours and raise money to look after theses horse hence our morning trip.
When we arrived we were met by Monty who took us out in search of the mustangs. On the way he showed us places on the ranch which have been used for either TV shows or movies. The Malboro cigarette company shoot their annual ads
on the farm and the Movie Hildago and Crazy Horse were shot here. Eventually we came across a herd of horses who were hiding from the snow and spent a while trying to get as close as possible to them. Over the morning we came across three or four big herds of wild horses. It was a great way to spend the morning just in the quiet of the ranch with snow blowing around and not an interstate highway in sight.
We then decided that we would head towards Mt Rushmore to see those famous Presidents faces so headed north through the Windcave NP again. We were treated yet again to an amazng viewing of Bison and Prairie dogs except this time there was snow all around so it added a different dimension.. We then kept heading north about 1 hour and arrived at Mt Rushmore. We then found out a very interesting thing about snow. If it is snowing it does funny things to the general visibility in the area. i.e. You can’t see two foot in front of your face.
To say we were disappointed would be an understatement. To be within one hundred metres of the
mountain and not to be able to see a single thing was extremely frustrating. We had intended to head away after seeing Rushmore and start our long trek across the country towards Yellowstone NP as we had a wolf viewing trip booked for two days later that we could not reschedule.. So we decided to head to the nearest town which was Rapid city and booked into a motel with hopes of a revisit the following day and then start to Yellowstone late. The weather forecast that night was for 6 inches of snow and a serious general storm warning was issued. We went to bed that night with everything crossed!
The following morning I opened the door to find about 15 ml of snow on the car roof and not the expected 6 inches The trip to Mt Rushmore was driven with a certain amount of trepidation and expectancy . Upon arrival we were treated to a beautiful morning which the attached photos show.
We then started a trek across three States to get back on schedule. We did have time to stop at the Devil’sTtower which is an amazing rock which is a bit of a
freak of nature and is made up of hexagonal rocks. It was a cool place to visit and broke up the 800 kilometre trek nicely.
From here we headed across South Dakota and Wyoming and ended up in the early hours of the evening in a small town called Columbus, Montana where we pulled into a Motel straight out of a movie set Namely “Psycho” The Motel resembled the Bates Motel and I was quite surprised to find that the vice squad didn’t kick in the door at some stage during the night as it also resembled every movie set cheap motel that you have ever seen.
Started the day early and headed off arriving at Yellowstone NP at midday. For both Steph and I this is the National park that we have both looked forward to immensely. So it was cool when we were greeted at the front gate by long horn sheep, bison and number of other wild beasts. We spent the afternoon visiting a small part of the park
Part of the park on a large volcanic area and sports such geysers as Old faithful etc. So we visited an area of travertine terraces which
resemble what The pink and white terraces would have looked like before the Mt Tarawera eruption. We then drove through the top part of the park seeing a number of Bison and deer herds. Before heading back to the small town of Gardiner just outside the north entrance.
As you can see from the photos we have seen our fair share of snow over the last few days and temperatures in the region of 5-8 degrees most days. We will not see the the end of it for at least another week when we start to head south again. Tomorrow morning we have a wolf viewing tour booked and so tonight will again go to bed with everything crossed hopeful of seeing some of the packs which apparently roam the park.. So we hope we will have some wolf type news for the next blog.
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coopers
non-member comment
Whaaat?
Waddya mean no more Prairie Dogs? We like the Prairie Dogs! Bring back the Prairie Dogs!!!