Jesse and I decided to take advantage of the Open House weekend at the state parks in the area. Custer State Park is one that I really wanted to go to once I found out we were moving to South Dakota. It has three scenic driving routes and a large wildlife area with roaming bison, burros and other critters. The usual entrance fee was waved and the girl at the booth was very helpful and gave us lots of maps (I love maps!). We followed the main road to the visitor center and decided to take a short walk around the path called Lover’s Leap. We had brought the dog with us and although she likes to walk, she can’t go as far as she used to since she is getting up there in years. We had the windows off the Jeep the whole time so she enjoyed sniffing the air.
The path was well traveled and mostly up hill. Now, earlier in the day Jesse and I went for a 10Kish trail run that involved lots of uphill and really pretty scenery. It was at the Big Hill trailhead in Spearfish, SD and we ran with the Black Hill Runner’s Club (which we decided to join) and had a great time. There were lots of bugs but it was a nice messy, muddy, fun trail run.
Anyway, we were pretty tired so we didn’t make it all the way through the trail. And the dog was getting pretty tired too so we headed back downhill to the car. We put Twicks in the back and then decided to take one of the scenic drives. It is called the Needles Highway and you can use it to get to a small lake up on top of the hill called Sylvan Lake. It started out as a pretty normal drive and then it climbed up steeper and the road became narrower. There were even stone tunnels that were single lane. It seemed like we would barely fit! We drove through and pulled off to take some pictures of the Needles which the road is named after. They are these wild pointed looking mountain ranges that are like nothing I have ever seen. It is amazing and they almost don’t even look real. This road also had some intense U-Turns. The Jeep did struggle a bit going up and up and up around these tight turns. Plus poor Jesse had to watch where he was driving so he didn’t get to see as much as I did. I told him I would make it up to him by taking my car and driving so he could look around.
It was a long drive but a beautiful one. We eventually made it up to Sylvan Lake and took the dog out to walk a bit by the lake. It also seemed surreal with these rocks coming out of the water and knowing that we were several thousand feet up. It was getting late so we headed back home. We were going to go up and around and drive past Mount Rushmore again but that road was closed so we had to go back through the park but we took a more direct route. We were almost to the end when all of a sudden the cars in front of us stopped because there was a small herd of bison just chilling out by the road noshing on grass. We got some pictures of course and headed home to Rapid.
Custer state park was awesome. We will be sure to be back there. We want to hike Harney Peak which is the highest point in South Dakota at 7,000+ feet above sea level. I don’t think I have ever been that high up so I am excited to give it a try.
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