Custer State Park

2022-07-14
Custer State Park, SD

Today we started by taking the Needles Highway across the park. Since we were early in the morning, we got to see a lot of wildlife. Primarily black tailed deer, mule deer, ground hogs, chipmunks, and squirrels; stuff that we wouldn't photograph at home and honestly they aren't different out west. We did see one nanny with a kid.

There are a couple of very narrow (about 8 foot wide) tunnels on the road, but they are plenty wide enough for the Subaru as long as it doesn't bring a date. I'm not sure how the big-truck-and-camper people do it.

Needles Highway took us to Sylvan Lake where our trailhead is located. We tackled the Black Elk Peak hike, going up Trail 9 and back Trail 4 to make it a 7.75 mile loop. The great part about July is that the flowers were all blooming along the way. The bad part of July is that by the time we were working our way down the mountain it was in the high 80's and it felt a lot hotter in the sun (which was most of the hike). We did get to see some more goats, or at least that's what someone who claimed some knowledge said they were. I've given up guessing between nanny goats and bighorn ewes; from any distance they look similar.

Our campsite is great; it's under an oak tree and is pretty much always in the shade. But today was pretty hot even in the shade. And it seems like each site has its own challenges; this one feels like it has a lot of ants. There always seems to be a few dozen of them on the picnic table. I guess someone must've been feeding them...

We came back to camp, ate some lunch, and went to the visitor's center primarily because it is air conditioned. The visitor's center movie is mostly about buffalo and how they were reintroduced to the park. It was also a bit of a commercial for their buffalo roundup and the jeep tours. But again, it was cooler than outside. We wandered back to our tent and we took a siesta to get past the heat. Well, I took a siesta while Valerie read. We had supper, and a 2.25-mile evening constitutional on the Grace Coolidge Path from the campground loosened up the legs.

Driving distance: 30 miles

Hiking distance: 10 miles