South Dakota – Part II

August 28 – September 11, 2021

Our adventures in and around Spearfish, South Dakota continue in this post.

Devil’s Tower

On a bright, beautiful Saturday morning we decided to drive across the state line into northeastern Wyoming to see Devil’s Tower. We thought that since the monument was 60 miles away it might not be as crowded as other attractions on a Saturday. We were wrong.

The 1267 foot tall stump-shaped granite formation truly dominates the landscape (the Belle Fourche River Valley). The pillar is about 1000 feet in diameter at the bottom and 275 feet at the top. The two-square-mile park surrounding the tower was proclaimed the nation’s first national monument by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. 

The tower, known as Bears Lodge, is a sacred site of worship for many Native American Indians. The markings on the tower provide the basis for many legends including one that claims a giant bear clawed the grooves into the mountainside while chasing several young Indian maidens.

Devils Tower has been the backdrop for several movies including My Darling Clementine (1946) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). It’s also a climbers paradise.

We stopped first at the Visitor’s Center and then took the 1.3 mile trail around the base of the tower.

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On our way out of the park we naturally had to stop at the prairie dog town. They were willing to come out and say hi as long as you didn’t get too close.

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We made one final stop at the Trading Post but didn’t stay long as it was crowded.

Sundance

On our way from Devil’s Tower back to Spearfish, we made a quick stop in Sundance – “where the kid got his name”.

Harry Alonzo Longabaugh (1867 – November 7, 1908), better known as the Sundance Kid, was an outlaw and member of Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch in the American Old West. He likely met Butch Cassidy (real name Robert Leroy Parker) after Cassidy was released from prison around 1896. The “Wild Bunch” gang performed the longest string of successful train and bank robberies in American history. Longabaugh fled the United States along with his consort Etta Place and Butch Cassidy to escape the dogged pursuit of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The trio fled first to Argentina and then to Bolivia, where most historians believe Cassidy and Longabaugh were killed in a shootout in November 1908.

In 1887, while traveling across the Three V Ranch near Sundance, Wyoming, he stole a gun, horse, and saddle from a cowboy. He was captured by authorities in Miles City, Montana, and sentenced to 18 months in jail by Judge William L. Maginnis, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Wyoming Territory. He adopted the nickname Sundance Kid during this time in jail in Sundance (the only time he was arrested).

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Crazy Horse Memorial

After discovering how crowded Devil’s Tower was, we decided to lay low over the remainder of the Labor Day weekend. On Tuesday, we set out to visit the Crazy Horse Memorial.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota, United States. It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing to his tribal land. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

The memorial master plan includes the mountain carving monument, an Indian Museum of North America, and a Native American Cultural Center. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain, on land considered sacred by some Oglala Lakota, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. The sculpture’s final dimensions are planned to be 641 feet long and 563 feet high. The arm of Crazy Horse will be 263 feet long and the head 87 feet high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mount Rushmore are each 60 feet high.

The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is far from completion. If completed as designed, it will become the world’s second tallest statue, after the Statue of Unity in India.

Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people. His most famous actions against the U.S. military included the Fetterman Fight (21 December 1866) and the Battle of the Little Bighorn(25–26 June 1876). He surrendered to U.S. troops under General Crook in May 1877 and was fatally wounded by a military guard, allegedly while resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska.

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We spent some time in the Visitor’s Center prior to taking the bus tour to the base of the memorial. Our bus driver/tour guide was from the Lakota tribe and provided a unique perspective on Native American traditions. Did you know that Crazy Horse had the boyhood name of Light-Haired-Boy since his hair and complexion were lighter than most in his tribe? Did you know that he was given his father’s name of Crazy Horse after a battle with Arapaho warriors in 1858 and his father took the name Worm?

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After the bus ride, we toured the Indian Museum, Sculptor’s Workshop, and Cultural Center.

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While we were there we were fortunate to have the opportunity to watch a Native American Hoop Dance.

There are usually 28 hoops used in the hoop dance, and they symbolize “a prayer that the promised renewal of the collective human spirit will accelerate and that we will all find our place in one great hoop made up of many hoops.” The hoops symbolize the “never-ending cycle of life,” having no beginning and no end.

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Before leaving the Memorial, we stopped in at the Laughing Water Restaurant for another round of Indian Tacos. These were even better than the ones we had near the Little Bighorn Battlefield.

Custer State Park

We discovered during out two week stay that Spearfish was not the best choice for exploring the area. Everywhere we wanted to go seemed to be about 1 1/2 hours away. Going to Custer State Park was problematic since, if we wanted to do the Wildlife Loop, we needed to be there early. So, one morning we got up at 5:00 a.m. and left the RV at 6 a.m. (Y’all know I’m not a morning person). We arrived at the east entrance to Custer State Park at 7:30 only to find out that part of the Wildlife Loop was closed (between the east entrance and the Wildlife Station Visitor Center). By the time we drove to the other entrance it was after 9:00 a.m. From there we drove the open section of the loop. We immediately spotted the bison at the campground but otherwise encountered only a couple of deer before finding the donkeys. Since we couldn’t complete the loop, we cut through the park on one of the dirt roads.

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Prior to leaving the park, we decided to stop at picturesque Sylvan Lake and take the trail around the lake.

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Needles Highway

After leaving Custer State Park we decided to check out Needles Highway. We had discussed attempting to drive the highway but couldn’t get a definitive answer on whether our truck would fit through the three tunnels. We drove to the first tunnel (Needles Eye – the narrowest) and pulled off into the parking area. We met a couple there who also had a dually. They said their truck was exactly 8 feet wide and were going to go through the tunnel. We watched as they successfully drove through but decided that our 8 foot 4 inch wide truck might not make it. Instead, we took some photos and bailed.

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Back at the campground we spent a couple of days relaxing and completing chores. We packed a lot into these two weeks but now we’re headed to Nebraska.