Yellowstone and Grand Tetons: Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park

Exploring the Black Hills

Lake Sylvan, Custer State Park

This is the fourth and final entry for our Yellowstone and Grand Tetons trip.  See below for the other entries:

1. How we planned the trip
2. Theodore Roosevelt National Park
3. Yellowstone National Park
4. Grand Tetons National Park

Site 17 at Horse Thief Campground

When I first started planning our trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons, those two parks were the only National Parks in scope.  Once I downloaded the National Parks app, using the map view, I noticed that Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) and Wind Cave National Park could both be easily visited with a slight modification to our route.  While I had heard of and driven by TRNP, I had never even heard of Wind Cave NP.   We've gotta go!  Our full itinerary of the area on Roadtrippers here.  We did not include Mount Rushmore as we had been there with the boys when they were young.

After settling in at Horse Thief Campground, I started to review the hours, fees, etc. for the Wind Cave.  That's when I discovered that while the park was 'open' they were not doing tours of the cave, and this time it wasn't due to the pandemic.  It was because the elevator was broken, and had been for over a year.  Oh well - we're here and we'll make the best of it!

For our one day in the area, we set off to first explore Custer State Park. There is a $20 per car, per week fee to enter the park.  We took a nice stroll around Sylvan Lake, drove through the Needles portion of the road, then enjoyed a more rigorous hike at Cathedral Point.  There is basically no parking at the Cathedral Point trailhead, so watch out for cars slowing at this curve, and be prepared to be creative with your parking.

We continued south along 87, and really started to see a lot more wildlife, including bison, pronghorn, and prairie dogs.

Our visit happened to be a few weeks before the Buffalo Roundup, a part of Custer State Park's management plan to maintain a healthy balance between the number of bison and the available rangeland forage. The park can only sustain a certain number of bison, based on the condition of the grassland and how much food is available. The Buffalo Roundup also allows for some of the animals to be sorted out of the herd. They are then sold at an auction in November. I do find it ironic that the proper term for the animals is 'bison' and yet the name of the roundup continues to be 'buffalo' to this day.

We made our way south to the entrance of the Wind Cave National Park to confirm what I had read online.  While the area and several outside displays were open, the actual wind cave tours were cancelled without an estimate of when they would resume (as of August 2021 they are back in operation).  We did however still get to see the largest natural opening into Wind Cave without going on a tour. This small hole is one of the only known natural entrances into the cave. Lakota oral tradition speaks of how the first bison and humans emerged from this deeply spiritual place.  You could feel the cool breeze coming from the opening and the ribbons fluttered as well.  

Wind Cave natural opening

We made our way north again towards Custer, stopped at a famously weird bicycle sculpture.  Tim's way into biking, so we had to stop, of course.

Bicycle sculpture near Pringle, SD

Again making our way north, we stopped at Mt. Rushmore Brewing for a bite and a brew.  Since neither of us had been to Crazy Horse, we stopped there as well.  It is the world’s largest Mountain Carving in progress.  We're not entirely sure it was worth the $30 entry 'donation', but we did appreciate all of the history and cultural displays.  We did not take the 'rustic bus ride' to visit the base of the sculpture. 

A bit of history: At the invitation of Chief Henry Standing Bear, Korczak Ziolkowski came to the sacred Black Hills in 1947 to create a monument of Crazy Horse. The first blast on the Mountain was June 3, 1948, and five survivors of the Battle of the Little Bighorn attended.  Seems crazy that the work so far has taken 74 years, however this project is NOT funded by the US Government, nor does the family want it to be.  The next phase of progress on the Mountain includes carving Crazy Horse's left hand, left forearm, right shoulder, hairline, and part of the horse’s mane and head in 5-10 years

Work completed so far

Scale model

Close up of the scale model

We rounded off our day by stopping by Sick N' Twisted Brewery, just north of Hill City.  Finally, we made our way back to Horse Thief, just in time for the sunset.

Making our Way Home
Our last stop before the final leg of our journey was just west of Sioux Falls, SD, where we found the Dakota Sunsets RV Park.  After a quick grilled chicken dinner, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the corn fields surrounding the park.  A nice quiet evening, reflecting on our journey, looking forward to getting home the next day.

Last sunset before heading home, aptly named Dakota Sunsets Park and Campground

I hope we have the chance to visit Yellowstone and the Tetons again and stay even longer.  We feel lucky we were able to visit even with everything that was happening in the world and the US at the time and blessed to be able to enjoy some of this country's most amazing sights.

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