Visit Rapid City and Nearby Attractions in South Dakota

JC/Peggy Sha and Fei/Tony Tarn toured the Black Hill National Forest in South Dakota in June 2015 to visit Mt Rushmore Monument, Custer State Park, Jewel Cave Monument, Wind Cave National Park and Badlands National Park.  Mt Rushmore Monument was the original destination for this trip, however, we found out all the other attractions in the Black Hill National Forest area were within approximately 1 hour drive from Rapid City.  Therefore, we decided to extend this trip to seven days with staying at the same hotel in Rapid City as the base for this trip.

In addition to the beautiful sceneries, there were a lot of wild lives in this national forest area.  It turned out that this was the best scenery and wildlife trip we ever have.

June 23, 2015 - Flew to Rapid City

We got up pretty early and arrived at Rapid City around 10AM.  After we got the rental car, we drove to our hotel Residence Inn to store luggages and to start our tour.  The 1st stop was to see the Presidential Square in Rapid City downtown. There are 40 live-sized statues of past presidents standing as pedestrians on street corners of streets between Main & St. Joseph in Rapid City downtown.  We saw Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, George Bush Sr., Lyndon Johnson and etc.  It gave us a good opportunity of taking pictures with these presidential statues.

We also walked by the famous Artist Alley.  It is a small alley with lots of street arts.  It is something interesting to see in a conservative city like Rapid City.

Then, we had lunch at the Firehouse Brewing Co (recommended by a staff in the Rapid City Visitor Center).  We had an outdoor setting with nice lunch in sunny weather of Rapid City.  

After lunch we visited the Bear Country USA which is an outdoor wildlife park just half an hour south of Rapid City.  Over there, you drive in your car and watch wildlife from your car.  At first, we were not quite sure what kinds of wildlife we would spot.  However, to our surprise, there were a lot of wildlife and actions there.  It looked like these wildlife felt that they own this place, and they were just roaming around and did not even bothered by cars driving by them.  There were bears, elks, bighorn sheep, arctic wolves, reindeers, and bisons.  

There is also a babyland area featuring small animals and baby animals.  The bear cubs also did a tree climbing act for our enjoyment.  We had a wonderful time spotting animals and took a lot of pictures there.

When we were ready to go out for dinner and noticed that there was an happy hour going on in the hotel lobby with hamburgers, veggies, beer and wine.  After making sure that it was for hotel guests, we stayed there and enjoyed our free meals.  The Residence Inn found by JC was a brand new hotel in the area and just opened a couple of weeks ago.  It still smelled brand new and had a very good rates.  Good job on JC’s part of finding such a nice hotel as our base for the week.

June 24, 2015 - Mt. Rushmore Monument

Mt. Rushmore Monument was our original destination of this trip, therefore we decided to visit it first.  We learned earlier that the 4 presidents’ faces are facing south east and the best time for photographing is in the morning.  We left the hotel at 7:30AM and took about 44 minutes to Mt. Rushmore Monument.  Prior to reaching the monument, we could see it from distance, so stopped twice on the road sides to take pictures from a distance.  

When we got to the monument, we were there earlier enough before the crowd and were able to take good pictures without too many people standing in the way between us and the presidents' faces. We also passed through the Alley of Flags and admired presidents' faces along with the flags.  We also hiked on the Presidential Trail, so we were able to see this amazing work in a closer distance.  

From what we learned, the person in charge of carving Mt Rushmore was Gutzon Borgium who looked at these faces from the base of the mountain and from every angle.  He also looked at these faces at different times of the day, examining the light and the shadows.  It took 14 years and 28 days to carve Mt Rushmore.  At first, Gutzon Borglum planned to carve the faces in the following order:  Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln which would put George Washington in the middle.  But when the workers were halfway through carving Thomas Jefferson, they realized that the rock was weak.  So, Borglum and the workers blasted Jefferson off the mountain and began to carve him on the other side of Washington. Because of this, Borglum had to figure out a new place to put Lincoln.  He decided to carve Lincoln on the end where the rock would be stable.

One interesting question is why South Dakota was chosen to be the place to carve Mr Rushmore.  Turned out South Dakota wasn’t chosen for the location, rather, South Dakota was where the idea developed.  Done Robinson lived in Pierre, South Dakota wanted to carve the “Needles” in the Black Hills for western heroes. But Sculptor Gutzon Borglum believed that faces of the presidents would be long-lasting symbol of the US, its history and its ideals of freedom and democracy.  He chose George Washington represented the birth of the US, Thomas Jefferson represented the growth of the US, Abraham Lincoln represented the preservation of the US, and the Theodore Roosevelt represented the development of the US. 

Afternoon, we visited the nearby Crazy Horse Memorial which is paying tribute to the culture, tradition and living heritage of American Indians and the spirit of legendary Lakota leader, Crazy Horse.  It is the world’s largest ongoing mountain carving.  It has been in progress since 1948 and is far from completion.  It was sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski and now is operated by a private non-profit organization managed by his wife and children.  It is planned to be 641 feet wide and 563 feet hight.  The head of Crzy Horse will be 87 feet high; by comparison, the heads of the four US Presidents at Mt Rushmore are each 60 feet hight. We did take a bus tour to get closer to the memorial, and we also stayed and watched an Indian Hoop Dance performance.

At evening we went to Mt Rushmore again to enjoy the evening program and the lighting show.  Unfortunately it rained, and the rain ruined the fun.  The lighting show was only simple spot non-color lights beaming on 4 presidents' faces.  With the cloudy weather, there were a lot of dark cloudily spots on their faces which was not spectacularly as we expected.  But we did visit it at night.

June 25, 2015 - Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park

The weather forecast indicated that it had 60% chance of rain, therefore we decided to change the itinerary to visit Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park.  Our thinking was that we would visit the caves and should have minimum impact by the rain.  When we got to Jewel Cave National Monument around 10:30AM, we found out that the first available tickets were for 2:30PM tour.  We did not want to wait, therefore we only hiked on the Roof Trail for about 30 minutes.  The weather and scenery were nice. 

Then we moved on to Wind Cave National Park.  Prior to get into the the Wind Cave National Park, we saw quite a few bisons just wondering around near the entrance point of the park, therefore, we stopped and took many pictures.  

When we got to the visitor center, we tried to get on one of the tours as soon as possible.  We had some time prior to the guided tour, therefore we tried to hike the Prairie Vista Trail near the visitor center.  The weather was not helping and the directions and markings for the trail were not clear either, therefore we only did for about 10 minutes and got back to the visitor center waiting for our tour.   

The Natural Entrance Guided Tour was about 75 minutes and it started at the location where the original entrance was found.  It is a very small hole on the ground which is hardly big enough for a person to get through it.  The ranger placed a plastic tape and demonstrated the wind is blowing in or out of this hole depending on air pressures of inside and outside of the cave, and she told us that was the reason it is called Wind Cave.  It is famous with the 'boxwork' which is an uncommon type of mineral structure formed by erosion rather then accretion. It 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 pattern.  The Ranger even turned off all the lights and let us to experience how explorers felt when they first discovered this cave.  It was interesting and educational.

After the Natural Entrance Guided Tour,  we went to hike on the Rankin Ridge Trail which is a 1 mile loop trail with a fire tower on the top of the hill.  However the tower was closed to the public at the time we got there.  From the top we were able to see the Black Hill Forest in distance and the panoramic view was great.

Then, we drove into the Custer State Park to tour the Wildlife Loop Road trying to spot wildlife.  We only see deers, and perrier dogs.  When we asked the ranger in the Wildlife Loop Visitor Center, he told us that most of bisons were spotted in a 3 miles area just north of the intersection of 16A and 36 on that day.  When we got there, we did not see anything and then we just took route 36 to get back to Rapid City and called off the day. On the way, we did spot some black bows at one of nearby hill and we got a chance to see them rush away upward on the hill.

June 26, 2015 - Badlands National Park

Since we already drove around the Wildlife Loop Road late afternoon yesterday, we decided to travel to east to tour Badlands National Park.  It is about 80 minutes on I90 East.  The 1st stop we made was the famous Wall Drug Store which is a western stores complex with all sort of merchandises.  On I90E, you can not miss their advertisements about 5 cents coffee etc.  We did not buy anything, but it was interesting to see all sort of different western stores with all sort of western items.

We entered Badlands National Park from I90 Exit 131 to visit the Ben Reifel Visitor Center first.  However, we were impressed by it’s sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires near the Door Trail area, so we stopped and enjoyed the wonder of nature.  The terrain reminded us of the Dead Valley National Park.  There were no trees near this area and it was hot.  

After many photos in this area, we were eagerly to get to the visitor center to find out more details on how to enjoy this national park.  We even missed the famous Notch Trail which was one of the trial we planned to walk.  With the ongoing construction on the way to visitor center, it took us quite a long time to get there and we decided not to drive back to visit the Notch Trail.  We drove along to visit the Yellow Mounds Overlook which has beautiful terrain and colorful geologic formations. 

Supposedly, there are a lot of wild lives in the park, however, we did not see any.  Therefore, we decided to call off the day earlier, went back to hotel for a short rest, then we went to Deadwood area to enjoy one of the casino buffet dinner.  The recommended buffet is in the First Gold Hotel in Deadwood.  They served snow crab legs and roast beef along with other dishes.  The food was good, however, the setup was in no way to compare with the buffet facilities in Las Vegas.  We still enjoyed it.

June 27, 2015 - Custer State Park

We got into Custer State Park from Hwy 36 and planned to visit the Peter Norbeck Visitor Center first.  Right after we go on to 16A W from Hwy 36 (right at the intersection of 16A W and Wildlife Loop Road), we spotted a lot of bisons coming down from the hills on north side and crossing the road (16A W) to the prairie on the other side.  We stopped just like all other visitors and took many pictures of them coming down the hills, crossing the roads, and wondering away to the prairie. We were so lucky by hitting this spot at the right time to witness such large herd of bisons. 

Later, we drove north to Hwy 87 and continued on Hwy 87 West to visited the Needle Highway for the famous granite spires.  Along the way, we spotted quite a few rock climbers on the top of the spires.  The most attractive spot is the Needle Eyes which is just north of a tunnel, and the tunnel is only big enough for one car to get thought it.  There is a hole in the middle of the spire and looks just like a needle eye.  We spent sometime there to enjoy this natural wonder.  At there, we also met some bikers and used their bikes for our photos.

The next destination was the Sylvan lake.  There were a lot of visitors hiking, fishing, swimming and even an outdoor lakeside wedding going on when we visited there.  We planned to visit 2 hiking trails  near this area, Sylvan Lake Shore Trail and Sunday Gulch Trail.  We started with Sylvan Lake Shore Trail which is an easy, flat, well paved trail around the lake.  On this trial, there are a lot of rock formations creating a narrow passage which is worth for Kodak moments.

In the midway of the Sylvan Lake Shore Trail, we took a left turn and got on to the Sunday Gulch Trail.  Just after a few minutes walk on the trail, we saw several rock climbers and we made conversations with them and learned a lot about the sport of rock climbing.  Along the way, we saw lots of wonderful rock formations and had a great time of taking pictures, and we even did a little bit of rock climbing ourselves.  

After we reached the highest point of this trail, we decided to turn back the same route due to limited time we had.  After we got back to Sylvan Lake Shore Trail, we ran into the other starting point of the Sunday Gulch Trail, we just went down there for about 5 minutes, then we witnessed the famous portion of the Sunday Gulch Trail which is the spot you have to walk over stream (with handrails built at both sides).  After we saw how much water we have to walk over, we decided that we were not equipped to do so, and we just took pictures instead.  If we ever have a chance to revisit this area again, we need to prepare for a proper water footwear to get through this trail.

Then we drove on Highway 87 South and then Highway 16A East to get back to Rapid City. On the way we even spot a long horn in one of the roadside farm.

When we passed Custer, we stopped by the Bobkat’s Old Fashion Ice Cream and Pie Shop for ice cream.  It was recommended by one of the artist we met in the Custer State Park.  They always have a long waiting line, however we got there just in time to avoid the line.  After that we stopped by one of the animal fur shop and bought a nice cow skin rug and a little goat skin rug.  It was a fulfilled day for both Sha’s and Tarn’s