Needles Highway

American Nomad Archived Entry 

August 27th 2009

Today was a jam-packed day as we braved the roads of the Needles Highway, picnicked by Sylvan Lake, took a hike and embarked on the Wildlife Tour once again.  

My mom and I woke up at seven.  The air was frigid and it was all I could do to warm up. We drove to Legion Lodge to split an affordable breakfast of two eggs over medium with bacon and hash browns.  

After breakfast we drove into the town of Custer to do laundry at The Lost Sock, a nice coin laundry.  While waiting for our clothes to tumble, my mom and I organized our car (we brought way too much stuff!) and planned our day.  

We finished up the laundry by ten-thirty and proceeded to travel to Sylvan Lake via the Needles Highway.  

The Needles Highway is considered one of the most scenic drives in America and is a must when visiting Custer S.P.  The Highway follows a fourteen-mile route filled with hairpin turns as it transverses through spectacular scenery of meadows, mountain vistas, birch, aspen, the elusive limber pine and most importantly rugged granite peaks. A mix of wildlife such as deer, turkey and the occasional mountain goat inhabit the area.

The highway is named for the needle like granite formations, which fill the topography of the northwestern region of Custer State Park. The term Needles refers to the eroded granite pillars, towers, and spires, which have been chiseled by years of erosion and geologic change. 

The roadway was carefully planned by former South Dakota Governor Peter Norbeck, who marked the entire course on foot and by horseback.  The U.S. Senator from South Dakota at the time of the highway's construction, Peter Norbeck, wanted to create a scenic Black Hills roadway that travelers could enjoy at a slower speed. He wanted visitors to enjoy the beauty and wildlife in the area, without hurting the natural resources of the hills. Construction was completed in 1922. It's important to note that impatient drivers looking for a sixty to seventy mile per hour speed should stay clear of this spectacular parkway.  With curves and roadside cliff side plunges, The Needles is meant to be driven at a maximum speed of twenty miles per hour.  I had to put our car in second gear in order to avoid over-braking as unexpected curves crept up on us.

I can honestly say this is one of my favorite things we've done in Custer thus far.  The scenery is sweeping and rock formations such are unique.  I particularly enjoyed 'The Needles Eye,' a granite spire, which rising forty feet in the air and has a four foot wide slit.  

There are plenty of turnouts and scenic pull outs for photo ops.  Many of Custer's best hikes and rock climbing spots are centered in The Needles.  I recommend Little Devils Tower, a moderate 6 mile round trip hike, which ascends Harney Peak (tallest peak east of the Rockies).  The trail is tough, but worth the effort for views of the Cathedral Spires, a unique Needle formation and prime geologic example of joint-controlled weathering of granite.   

It took us an hour to reach popular park tourist spot Sylvan Lake, considered the 'crown jewel of Custer.'   Sylvan Lake is positioned  in the northwestern corner of Custer State Park in an idyllic spot amidst Mountain peaks, a lush valley and man made lake surrounded by natural granite blocks of stone.  It was created in 1881 when Theodore Reder built a dam across Sunday Gulch.  In 1895 a Victorian Hotel was built on the property.  The original hotel burned down in 1935 and the Sylvan Lake Lodge was rebuilt later that same year under the advisement of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who surveyed the area and suggested the Lodge should be placed in it's current location to accentuate the surrounding scenery.

The Sylvan Lake Lodge is situation on a ridge overlooking the lake and a forest of pine and spruce.  The architecture is modern rustic with lots of native granite stone and hardwood.  I highly recommend touring the hotel's interior, particularly the large lobby, which is scattered with leather vintage chairs, a high ceiling and picture windows, making you feel like you're in a majestic tree house.  The lunch and dinner menu within the lodge is a casual gourmet with a quality wine list...Not hungry, but up for a cocktail or just a soda, step onto the large porch, breath the mountain air and take in the view of Sylvan Lake.

Following a brief tour of the Sylvan Lake Lodge, we drove to the lake, nabbed a parking spot and set up shop at a nearby picnic area for a lunch of cheese wraps, juice and raisins.  We are running low on cash as we still have another week before we get paid so budgeting on food has been key.

After lunch we hiked around Sylvan Lake and enjoyed the beach.  Sylvan Lake offers swimming, hiking, rock climbing and lots of picnicking opportunities.  It is home to a old-time general store and the nearby historic Sylvan Lake Lodge.

After two hours of picnicking, hiking and relaxing the mosquitoes got to be too much (50 bites in half and hour) and we decided to head on over to the Game Lodge district and Park Visitor's Center...for the next portion of todays excitement stay tuned for another entry!

Hot Springs S.D. and Hot Car

Archived Entry for August 26th 2009 Part II:

By the time we left Wind Cave the air was hot, a skin-splintering prairie heat that kept getting hotter.  My mom and I opted to drive south eleven miles to the historic town of Hot Springs S.D. and let me tell you that this portion of our adventure was filled with drama and somewhat unwelcome excitement. 

Hot Springs S.D. is a charming town with beautiful nineteenth century buildings and Native American and Old West history.  It was recently named as a 2009 Distinctive Destination by the National Trust for Historic Preservation due to its mix of history and the towns commitment to preservation and building a better community.  

Hot Springs is an excellent day trip for those vacationing in Custer State Park and or The Black Hills.  It's topography is contrasts to the lushness of the Black Hills near Mt. Rushmore and is a mix of prairie and foothills.  The site was sacred to many native peoples due to the natural warm springs within the town's boundaries.  These springs are warm, not really hot anymore, and offer healing properties.  

Sandstone structures dating from the 1880s still line the downtown streets.  Although the down economy has forced some restaurants to close up shop - this town is still full of life - with historic hotels, over 400 hotel rooms in a town of roughly 3,000.  Lots of historic bathhouses and spas are open for business, and a nice downtown trail showcases the warm springs and natural beauty of the region.  I suggest by starting off your tour of Hot Springs at the 1890s Railroad Depot, which has been transformed into a very nice visitor center.  

Area attractions include Evan's Plunge - a water park using the healing warm spring water the town is named for, The Black Hills Horse Sanctuary - where the movie Hidalgo was filmed, a golf course, and the Mammoth Site.

My mom and I really wanted to see the Mammoth Site, but we are a little strapped for cash, and all of our money goes for the campsite, gas and food.  However we still wanted to at least stop by the Mammoth Site visitor center to pick up some brochures and learn what we could about a significant natural history site.

The Mammoth Site is one of the most significant Natural Historical sites in the world, and is a worthy detour for anyone in the area.  Located just outside downtown Hot Springs is the site of a karst sinkhole, which contains the remains of fauna and flora preserved by entrapment during the Pleistocene era and Ice Age.

During the Ice Age, mammoth, camel, and giant short-faced bear roamed the Great Plains of North America and this portion of South Dakota. The Mammoth site's history begins 26,000 years B.C. when the cavern at the site collapsed, resulting in a steep karst sinkhole, running 65-feet deep, and at one point was 120 by 150 wide at the surface.  The same warm artesian-fed springs, which are present in the area today, created a pond in the sink hole, which attracted wildlife.  From time to time, animals who stopped by for water would fall into the sinkhole after drinking water as they were unable to gain a foothold to escape.  The sinkhole was a deathtrap. 

The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs S.D. is the preeminent site for Mammoth research and is the largest mammoth paleontological site in the world with over fifty-five Mammoths found to date.  The majority of mammoth remains have been identified as Columbian Mammoths, however Woolly Mammoths have been found in the sinkhole as well.

The Mammoth Site is a non-profit research agency founded in 1974, with the advent of the discovery of the natural history site.  Year round scientists from around the world working to excavate fossils and study the natural history of the area.  Admission is $25, and gives tourists a first hand look at excavation, Mammoth fossils, and an informative thirty minute tour.  It is open year-round!

For more Information visit the Mammoth Site

After a brief tour of the site, we couldn't afford the price of admission - not because it was over priced we just didn't have the funds readily available, my mom and I stopped by the nearby National Wildlife Visitor Center office at Buffalo Gap - which is the base for the National Grasslands and Prairie.  

The rangers were very friendly and suggested we drive south ten-miles to beautiful Cascade Falls, a popular picnic area and watering hole for locals. My mom and I thanked them for their advice and headed over to Cascade Falls.  It was then that our trouble began.

It is important to note that we are fully out of the mountains and into HOT and I mean TORRID HOT prairie, filled with more grasshoppers than you've ever seen, and tall grasses and sunburned skin just by sitting in the car...HOT and flat land.  The sky is big, the grass tall and at times you feel lost.  This topography makes sense if you look at the map - we were just forty minutes away from Nebraska and in the middle of the Great Plains.

The signage for Cascade Falls wasn't the best, and we found ourselves a little lost.  We kept driving thinking the Park was just another mile or so, but all we found were miles of desolation, ranches, and cows.  The heat was brutal, and our air conditioner just ran hot air.  

It was about this time I happened to look down at the dash and it wasn't good.  I had noticed the car had been making a gurgling sound in the past few minutes and I now knew why - the water gauge was way atop the danger zone. Like a scene from a movie our car was overheating in the middle of a desolate prairie in an area with no cell-phone reception and the chance of cars passing by.  It was time to PRAY!  

I pulled into a turnout for a ranch and we let the car cool off for about twenty minutes, however the heat on the prairie and splintering sun beaming down on the hood of the Oldsmobile only made things worse.  My mom and I decided our best option was to try to drive the twenty some miles back to Hot Springs and get to a service station.  

As we drove north toward the town of Hot Springs, 'Warning' Lights came on and flashed, making me only more anxious.  I kept praying that we could 1) Reach a gas station and 2) get somewhere with cell-phone reception so I could call AAA.  We had $150 for two more weeks, barely enough to pay for a rental car for a few days let alone get the car fixed.  Panic could easily have set in, but I kept my faith and God heard my prayers.

About ten-minutes later we saw the parking lot for Cascade Falls ( yes we'd passed it thinking it was a turn out, as the falls aren't visible from the road, they are down a cliff backing up to the parking lot.)  We decided it best to stop as the car could only go a max of twenty-miles per hour...

Plan A - We waited ten minutes, parking the car under a sole shade tree with hopes it would cool off - not so lucky...car would start period at the end of that period...

Plan B- I had tried Triple AAA, but had been on hold for 25 minutes...My mom went down to the falls and swimming hole, which is very beautiful - the water is comprised of the healing Hot Springs and if you watch for Poison Ivy cliff side - is a nice place to stop.  She filled up a Nalgene bottle with water and we dumped it a top the car hood, hoping cool water would cool down the car - didn't work....

Plan C - God steps in!  I know some people don't believe in answered prayers, but I don't know a better example of God's answered prayers.  Just as we felt destined to beg and grovel for a Western Union express from our relatives (who would not be happy to comply) my mom started talking with a fellow traveler named Summerhall.  He was in his sixties, traveling from Dallas on to Yellowstone.  In a past life he'd been a car mechanic and offered to look at the car. 

He quickly confirmed  that the water was low and the car was overheating.  In some weird twist of fate, Summerhall had ten gallons of water jugs in his car (for camping), more than enough to refill the water in our car and get us on the road again.  After pouring water in the gauge until it was full, the gauge went down to nearly zero.  He then double-checked the engine and said we were good to drive home and wouldn't have anymore problems with the car.  How many people have that expertise and carry that much water in his car (camping or not).  It was serendipity and I am still grateful for Mr. Summerhall and God's answered prayers.

He followed us into Hot Springs.  My mom and I parked the car in town in a shaded area and let it sit for an hour to fully cool off.  We took this time to explore Hot Springs and eat some ice-cream in an old-time fountain in town known as The Blue Buffalo.  We also explored a historic Episcopal Church in town and toured the Visitor's Center.

We drove our car back to Custer around five-thirty.  In what turned out to be a crazy day we were happy to relax over a picnic dinner at Legion Lodge in Custer before heading back to our campsite at Center Lake...

For more on Hot Springs:

Hot Springs Visitor Info

*Pictures - Top Left - Prairie and Pronghorn, Top Right - Downtown Hot Springs Trail

Wind Cave National Park

*This is an archived journal entry from August 26th 2009. I'm dividing it up into two post as it was a crazy day with lots of activity from a trip to Wind Cave National Park, Hot Springs SD and an overheated car! I hope you enjoy the entries...

August 26th 2009:

Woke up this morning at 6:15 a.m. and loaded everything into our car. It looks to be a brilliant day with blue sky and relative humidity. Our plan is to drive south to Wind Cave National Park, another large cave in Southwestern South Dakota, and then onto the historic town of Hot Springs. Wind Cave is situated approximately thirty miles south of the Legion Lodge. The park boundaries of Custer and Wind Cave overlap, making for a gorgeous drive through a wide range of topography ranging from mountains to prairie.

As we headed toward Wind Cave we encountered an abundance wildlife including wild turkeys, mule deer, bison, and an entire herd of Pronghorn! I have noticed that the best time to encounter wildlife is early in the morning, close to dawn or late in the afternoon, close to dusk. As always be respectful of wildlife and admire them at a distance.

On the way to Wind Cave we stopped for breakfast at Blue Bell, a tourist area of Custer with lodging, food, and a gift shop. Blue Bell is situated at the base of Mount Coolidge, and straddles French Creek and a sea of Ponderosa Pine. It was built in the 1920s by a Bell Telephone executive, and named for Bell's company namesake - its 'Blue Bell.' The owner of Blue Bell deeded over the land and his ranch to Custer. Blue Bell is picturesque, and another great spot for families wanting an old-west experience. The campground and cabins are very nice and on-site activities such as ranger talks, hikes, horse-back riding and western chuck wagon ridges.

We were seated in a corner booth in Tatanka Dining Room. The Dining Room, which was recently remodeled in 2008, offers delectable and affordable breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for any palette. Specialties include burgers, steaks, salads, and trout. The dining room is perfect for families with plenty of comfortable seating and ambiance. The decor reminds me of an old west hunting lodge with hardwood floors and a stone fireplace. An adjoining lounge offers live music at night and an gorgeous oak bar for adults to indulge in a glass of wine and appetizers.

For breakfast my mom and I split a cowboy breakfast of steak and eggs, homemade hash browns, orange juice and coffee. It filled us up for an jam-packed day ahead. The service was upbeat and friendly.

After our scrumptious breakfast my mom I continued south to Wind Cave. The topography changed drastically from mountains to high grassland prairie. It took about twenty-minutes to exit Custer's boundaries and reach the entrance to Wind Cave. The area is quiet, except for the rustling of the wind, which is strong and ferocious at times. It whispers like a melody. The sun is harsh and the sky takes up one's entire peripheral vision...It's a tapestry of color, geology, and wildlife. Wildlife teems here with elk, bison, pronghorn, mountain lion, coyote, bobcats, foxes, and prairie dogs. The grasslands are filled with wildflowers and grasshoppers, so as lonely as the seemingly endless prairie may seem it is full with life.

Prairie dogs are abundant in the grasslands surrounding Wind Cave. Prairie Dog towns line the roads, and you really need to be careful not to hit them as they often cross the road. They need prairie dog crossing signs! Prairie dogs are the most amazing creatures, the way they interact and look after each other!

About seven minutes after entering the National Park we reached the cave entrance and Visitor Center. Wind Cave was discovered by the Bingham Brothers in 1881 after they heard a loud whistling noise from a small hole in ground, which subsequently knocked Jesse Bingham's hat off his head. It is now known that the tiny hole was the only natural entrance to Wind Cave. The wind whistling out of the hole begged curiosity so a few days later Jesse returned to show his friends. Oddly enough the wind switched directions and this time his hat was sucked into the cave. It is known today that the direction of the wind is related to the difference in atmospheric pressure between the cave and the surface.

The first person reported to have entered the cave was Charlie Crary in the fall of 1881. In 1890 the South Dakota Mining Company filed a claim on the cave and J.D. McDonald was hired to manage the mine. The McDonald family quickly realized there was no money to be made in mining at Wind Cave, however they could make a profit by giving cave tours and selling formations from the cave. They filed a homestead claim over the opening and worked on improving a man-made entrance and enlarging passageways for tours.

J.D.'s son, Alvin was intrigued with the cave and spent a majority of his time exploring its maze and mapping out its passageways. He kept a diary on his findings, which is still referenced today.

In the summer of 1891, an investor named John Stabler formed a partnership with the McDonald's to form the Wonderful Wind Cave Improvement Company. Cave passages were widened and wooden staircases were installed. A hotel was built near the cave entrance and a stage coach provided rides to the cave. In 1893, Alvin died of typhoid fever and a feud ensued between the the McDonalds and the Stablers.

In December 1899, the Department of the Interior decided that since no mining nor proper homesteading had taken place, neither party had any legal claim to the cave. In 1901, the land around the cave was withdrawn from homesteading.

Wind Cave National Park was established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, making it the seventh oldest National Park in the world and the first cave to be designated a National Park. Wind Cave lies underneath a vast prairie with the mountains of the Black Hills cradling its core. Wind Cave is very unique in the fact it has a special kind of cave formations called 'boxwork' and 'frostwork.' Approximately 95% of the world's boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave.

'Box Work': Boxwork is commonly composed of thin blades of the mineral calcite that project from cave walls or ceilings that intersect one another at various angles, forming a box-like or honeycomb pattern. The boxwork fins once filled cracks in the rock before the host cave formed. As the walls of the cave began to dissolve away, the more resistant vein and crack fillings did not, or at least dissolved at a slower rate than the surrounding rock, leaving the calcite fins projecting from the cave surfaces.

'Frost Work': is a type of speleothem (cave formation) composed of acicular ("needle-like") growths almost always composed of aragonite (a polymorph of calcite) or calcite replaced by aragonite [1]. It is a variety of anthodite. In some caves frostwork may grow on top of cave popcorn or boxwork.

It is a three-dimensional maze cave, recognized for having the most passage volume per square mile compared to any cave system in the world. It is the second longest cave system in the world with 119.58 of charted passageways, and known length of 151.04 miles (more miles discovered each year). Interesting to note that an average of four new miles of cave is discovered each year. Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States.

The Visitor Center offers a variety of exhibits regarding the cave itself, and its unusual formations. It is also where you sign up for a variety of cave tours. All caves tours cost at least $7 and no discount for park pass owners. Plan accordingly and call ahead to reserve tickets, especially if you have a large family. The fee is worth it however for the magnificent formations.

I recommend taking your time viewing the V.C. history and wildlife exhibits. A twenty-minute orientation film is also a good introduction to the Cave and Park land covering it.

Cave Tours: There are five cave tours varying in intensity, features and duration. I recommend the Garden of Eden tour, which is the easiest to maneuver with only 150 steps and gives a great introduction the cave. It lasts just over an hour. Another good option is the Natural Cave tour with 300 steps and at 1 1/4 minutes offers views of boxwork, popcorn and frostwork.

Hiking: There are three hiking trails within the Park boundary. This is a great way to get off the beaten path, and immerse yourself in the flora and fauna of the prairie. I recommend bringing lots of water for any prairie hike and sunscreen as the sun is strong, even if the temperature is not that extreme.

We finished up at Wind Cave around eleven. We decided to head onto Hot Springs, although we were tempted to detour on a prairie hike...for Part II of this entry look for a subsequent post.

Information on Wind Cave N.P.

*Frostwork is shown in photo above.