In the Paha Sapa

Our first camping site in Custer State Park on Sylvan Lake was beautiful. This picture might look a bit familiar if you've seen the movie 'National Treasure 2'. If you happened to sit through the awful movie until the end, you saw Nicholas Cage and his posse on top of this rock trying to find a secret passageway to a large treasure. According to the movie, this lake is right behind Mt. Rushmore. In reality, it's a good 10-12 miles away. But, you can hike all the way around it.


Hiking in the Black Hills was quite different from the Badlands. The lake hike was a short, but scenic jaunt. There were several people out enjoying the holiday weekend.

After a short hike, we drove the Needles highway which is a road with hairpin turns and one-car tunnels. You see some beautiful scenery, though.

Dave and I stopped for a picture. I'm sporting some great camping hair. There's no hair dryers at campsites, and I forgot mine. Going nearly a week without a hair dryer was really, really tough. It was worse than sleeping on an air mattress, worse than starting fires, and worse than packing up camp.

The Black Hills or Paha Sapa were actually named by the Lakota. From a distance, the pine covered hills appear black, thus the name. They are a sacred territory that was actually ceeded to the indians until white explorers discovered gold there. Then, settlers pushed in, the goverment took the land, indians resisted, and soldiers responded. The stories of Custer, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, and Crazy Horse all resonate here. There are several museums and stores that tell their story and sell related goods. So many campgrounds share those names--sometimes a combination of the two. We saw a Custer Crazy Horse Campground. I doubt they appreciate sharing even a meager RV campground name. The Black Hills spill into Wyoming, and it was there that Custer made his last stand at the Little Bighorn. We didn't make it that far. The final indian massacre at Wounded Knee was nearby, though. But we didn't make it there either.

Originally, the men behind Mt Rushmore wanted to carve not presidents, but western heroes out here in the Cathedral Spires. Visionary Gutzon Borglum, who carved the heads, decided the rich easterners would much rather come see presidents than heroes like Red Cloud or Sacagawea. Borglum couldn't carve here on the Cathedral Spires. The rock wasn't right. I think that was a good thing, because they are a still a beautiful sight today.