Day 33

Devils Tower

The heat woke me up this morning. No more cool mountain mornings, from now on the tent would heat up like an oven in the morning sun, and it would be like going into an air conditioned room when stepping out of it.

Looking out the window of our tent, I could see Devils Tower. It was another PB&J breakfast, something we haven’t done in a while. The park is about 1.5 by 1.5 miles square. We drove up the circular road to the visitor center at the tower’s base. There was a lot of information here, about climbing the tower, walking around the tower, and the history of the tower.

We found out that there was a ranger led walk halfway around the tower. We weren’t going to let Eric of the Tetons have the last word. We joined Liz and the other couple who were interested and proceeded around the tower on the Tower Trail.

This trail was a little over a mile. Liz was nice, seemed to know her stuff. The Belle Fourche River exposed Devils Tower with its relentless erosion. The tower is 5,117 feet above sea level and 1,267 feet above the river. The tower used to be magma that forced its way to the surface. This molten rock then cooled and fractured into five-sided columns, the shape of the tower’s rocks today. Then the river eroded away the surrounding sedimentary rock to expose the tower. The diameter at its base is 1,000 feet and the area of the top is 1.5 acres.

There were many climbers on its faces today. The first people climbed the tower in 1893. The Native Americans think the tower is sacred and perform many ceremonies around the tower, even today. Liz ditched us about halfway around the trail and we finished it up ourselves. At times we were in the thick of a pine forest, other times we were next to the tower and huge fields of rocks.

We finished up the trail and headed for the exit. Before leaving, we stopped at the Prairie Dog Town. This is a dry grass meadow with dirt patches dotted all over the field. These patches were prairie dog holes. The prairie dogs would come out of their holes and look around nonchalantly posing for pictures. We got the obligatory prairie dog picture and left.

Black Hills

Devils Tower would now fade away in the rear view mirror as we headed for South Dakota. The area around Devils Tower is a transitional region. It has characteristics of both the plains and the mountainous regions of Wyoming. By tonight we would be in the great plains, leaving the Rockies behind for good. We took US 14 to Sundance, Wyoming, where it was back on I-90 east. We passed Spearfish, South Dakota, and got off I-90 and onto US 85 south.

Deadwood

We were now in the Black Hills National Forest heading into the town of Deadwood. This is an old gold mining town with a lot of history. Wild Bill Hickok, the legendary marshal of Hays and Abilene, Kansas, was shot dead here in 1876 also, Calamity Jane, the woman who dressed in men’s clothes, is also buried here.

Tucked in the Black Hills, the town is very touristy and has legalized gambling. They try to preserve the old west here, but it’s just not genuine. There are motels everywhere, with pools crammed next to the road. Tacky tour buses and billboards begging those who pass to see where they actually filmed Dances with Wolves.

Crazy Horse Monument

Rather than go into Lead, South Dakota, we turned on US 385 south which was a nice ride through the Black Hills, without too many towns along the way. This took us to the Crazy Horse Monument. This, if ever completed, will be the largest statue at 563 feet. This monument to the Oglala chief who, along with Sitting Bull, crushed Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn, was taken up by the artist Korczak Ziolkowski. He set up a home here and made the sculpting of the mountain his life’s work.

Because this is not a federal project, they refuse to take money from the government; therefore, it has taken decades to make the little progress that they’ve made (this explains the $12 entrance fee). They hope to have the face done by the year 2000, but I don’t think they will. This project is not only a statue but a major development project. They want to build a Native American college here and practically an entire town. The plans they have here would be completed in a matter of months where we live; here they must have patience and understand that they may not be alive to see their dreams fulfilled.

Custer State Park

We left the monument and headed for Custer State Park. We continued on US 385 south through the town of Custer, where Lt. Col. Custer led a party of gold diggers in 1874. Turning east on US 16 ALT took us to the park.

This park has nothing to do with Native American history, it’s just a park outside of Custer, South Dakota. They did build a stockade here and there are other interesting historical things, but the park is primarily a wildlife refuge. The park is home to buffalo, elk, pronghorn antelope, white tail and mule deer, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, coyotes, and prairie dogs.

We turned on SD 87 toward Wind Cave National Park, which I wish we’d stopped at now, but we turned on the Wildlife Loop Road instead. We saw pronghorn antelope, a herd of buffalo, and came across these burros in the road. They were just hangin’ around, blocking traffic.

Mount Rushmore

This brought us back to US 16 ALT (Iron Mountain Road) and we took this north to our next destination: Mount Rushmore National Memorial. This was one of the most scenic roads we’d been on in a while. It didn’t go through any towns, it just wound its way through the Black Hills and the thick forest. At times the road would even split with these large trees on an island between lanes. It was the type of road without lane lines and had one-lane, square-carved tunnels and custom-made, curved wooden bridges called the pigtail bridges.

As we got closer to Mt. Rushmore, the trees would occasionally provide us with a peek at the “Shrine of Democracy.” We were on a mountain top and could gaze over to the memorial. We turned on SD 244 west and entered the park. The sun was beginning to head down, it was approaching late afternoon. There is a nice visitor center here and a long walkway lined with all the flags of the states and territories. There is a large cafeteria and a couple of paved trails through the forest.

This memorial was started in 1927 and took 14 years to complete. The 5,725 foot mountain was named in 1885 for a New York lawyer. The work was designed and carved by the sculptor Gutzon Borglum. The sculpture is of (as I’m sure you know) Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the last one dedicated in 1939. Borglum died in 1941, leaving, some think, an incomplete work. To get an idea of scale, Washington’s forehead to his chin is 60 feet. His eyes are 11 feet wide, and his mouth is 18 feet wide. We both got some ice cream and relaxed for a while.

We left, traveling west on SD 244, but pulled over in the first turnout to look at the map. We turned around and, as we did, there was a mountain goat sitting there eating away. I thought it was a big white plastic bag; I saw it out of the corner of my eye when we initially pulled in the turnout. This thing had big black horns and was the first mountain goat we’d seen.

Badlands

We followed US 16 to Rapid City. It was getting cloudy and we drove on the new highway into Rapid City so we could get back on I-90 east for the Badlands National Park. There was a very big storm approaching now. We got rained on near Rapid City, but we were able to drive out of the storm, only to have it catch us again later tonight.

It’s about 50 miles to Wall, South Dakota, where we had to get off on SD 240 south to the park. At the park entrance, the ranger told us that tornadoes and large hail were spotted in Rapid City and Box Elder, and gave us instructions on what to do if a tornado was coming our way.

We took the free advice and got the hell out of there. It was getting darker and darker and we were hoping to get the tent set up before the storm came. We stopped at a vista point and the storm was huge, pushing down a part of the cloud in a bowl-shaped depression, the beginning signs of a tornado. The sky under the storm was pink as the sun was setting. It was beautiful, but intimidating too.

We got in the car and continued to speed through the park, heading for the campground at the other end of the park. We made it there and it was really dark now, and the winds were kicking up too. The ranger out in the road told us that the campground is full and gave us a few alternatives as he held on to his hat.

We ended up going to the Circle 10 Campground in Cactus Flat, South Dakota, which had showers! It was raining hard now and we got a somewhat secluded sight and waited in the car for the rain to die down a bit.

It was obvious that the rain wasn’t going to stop soon, so around 10 p.m. we set up the tent. By 11:30 p.m. the rain had diminished, but the wind was relentless. Because we had gotten in the habit of not staking the rainfly into the ground, the tent was now all deformed and the rainfly was flapping so hard that the entire thing was lifting out of the ground. So we had to go out and do some repairs, staking down the tent and rainfly properly. Once we did this it was smooth sailin’ for the rest of the night.