8 Apr 2022
Finally! Nice weather! The wind died down, the sun came out and the forecast said we should hit 60! YAY! Perfect day to do some hiking at Custer State Park… except the internet seemed divided on whether the road to the trails I was hoping to hike was actually open. After debating for far too long, I finally said we should just drive out there and find out for ourselves.
Our route took us past Mount Rushmore:
I thought maybe we should stop here first, since the lighting was perfect, but Matt wanted to get the hiking out of the way first, before it got too warm.
Farewell, gentlemen, we’ll be back!
Winding mountain roads through tunneled rocks:
The hikes I had planned were along 87/Needles Highway, which included several more tunnel drive-throughs:
It wasn’t until after we paid our entrance fee and entered the park that we found the road closed sign. That would have been nice to know before we paid (the booth wasn’t manned, there was just an electronic kiosk):
Fortunately, there was a nice little loop around Sylvan Lake that was also on the to-hike list for today, so it wouldn’t be a complete loss.
This lake is absolutely gorgeous! It was perfectly still, not a cloud in the sky…
These pictures are straight out of my phone:
No filter needed!
My only regret is that I didn’t swap to the wide-angle on my big camera, so I don’t have a nice, high-quality version to blow up and hang on the wall.
The hike was advertised as a loop, but kind of just dead-ended here into this rock:
We found this maybe path, which took us to a maintenance building and around some of the rocks, but we never found a clear trail:
So we headed back out the way we came and figured we’d go around to the other side of the lake to see if we could pick up the trail there.
This side gets more sunlight, so all the snow over here was melted:
It also started getting a bit windier:
Backside of the dam/dead-end path:
This pathway reminded me of Skyrim:
It was super-icy and Matt totally wiped out climbing the stairs:
We ended up coming out near dead-end rock, from a snow section that both of us saw but dismissed as being too icy.
So the morning didn’t turn out quite as planned, but this lake turned out to be more fun than expected!
Since the loop that would take us on to Mount Rushmore was closed, we backtracked the way we came. There weren’t a lot of other cars on the road, so I jumped out and got this picture of Julie in the tunnel- I would not want to take a large vehicle through here!
Unfortunately, by the time we got back to Mount Rushmore, the sun was casting shadows across the presidents’ faces:
The traditional (and super-mature) picking-George-Washington’s-nose picture:
We hiked a short loop that takes you along the base of the mountain- good idea in theory, but you get a lot of up-the-nose views:
The view gets better as you move away from the mountain:
Me, Matt and some presidents:
There are some great viewpoints, if you can time the sun just right:
Birds:
Free air! Not something I expected to see here.
Dinner tonight came from Sickie’s Garage:
They had this cool old truck and some engines on display out front:
A Monte Cristo for Matt, a Kobe burger for me, and pretzel bites for snacking on later!
Today may not have gone as expected, but it was still a fun day.