Black Elk Peak

South Dakota conjures up a few iconic images. The Badlands. Mt. Rushmore. Ehm…tall mountains? (To be clear, for flatlanders, even Mt. Rushmore may qualify as the nose-bleed section. And yes, we did do the obligatory imitation of the dynamite-carved rock sculpture.

(L to R) Mama Larshop posing (perfect hair currently) as George, Eliot as TJ (maybe a little too angled/eagerly on Mr. Washington’s shoulder in this pose?), Quincy as a more thoughtfully-angled Teddy, and Papa Larshop (as the only facial-haired option in the group standing in for Old Abe).

For the unfamiliar, the highest point in South Dakota might feel unworthy of a true peak-bagger. But at a 7 mile round trip hike featuring over 1500′ of elevation gain, an incredible view from the Fire Lookout tower that used to be staffed to watch for wildfires in the area, including around the Mt. Rushmore area, and plenty of flora and fauna along the way, we think it qualifies as a ‘real hike’!

Located in Custer State Park, we’d bagged one of the last camp-sites available by taking advantage of the call-in features in the park. If an ADA-accessible site hasn’t been reserved by day-of, they’ll let it go to an able-bodied party. Good tip for the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants planners we’ve been so far in response to the pandemic. We’d called earlier, right at 8:00 a.m. from Wyoming near Devil’s Tower the night before, only to discover 1.) we’d had bad information from an outdated website–the call in started at 7:00am, not 8:00, and 2.) because S.D.’s call in center was based in Central Time (even though Western S. Dakota observes Mountain time), it was already 9:00am and every available site was reserved. The wheel-chair accessible campsite was actually lovely, in no small part due to how flat the campsite was with its nicely concrete flat poured area–we chuckle still at some of the places we’ve already camped, having to position random rocks and chunks of wood to level the camper so the fridge works, etc…

We digress. Custer State Park is worth another visit if you’ve ever traveled through S. Dakota and not paid the highest point a visit, or checked out the seven state parks in the system. Heck, it even features a mini-Devil’s Tower feature…visible in the first photo earlier in the post.

We started our hike late in the day–too late for a real summit hike if serious weather was threatening. But since only COVID-19 is the storm we’re constantly waiting to roll in on us, it was the perfect time to begin. We cheered the other groups dutifully wearing masks, but since we were several weeks pre-Sturgis-rally at the time, case loads were pretty low and precious few were practicing any semblance of social distancing.

The fire tower was pretty impressive at the summit. Fully staffed for many years to watch for wildfires sparking, usually after lightning strikes. The jagged peaks reminded us of the Rockies. Still accustomed to Utah and Wyoming elevations, we found the hike pretty easy overall.

Workers helped create a cistern for water storage, (presumably from rain water?) and must have had plenty of time on their hands, creating the steps Mama Larshop, Quincy and Eliot are visible in in the picture.

Crazy rooftop-of-the-world structure built, in the days when discovering a fire early could mean saving towns and lives. On our descent in the waning hours of the day, abundant wildlife surprised us along the trail, including deer, various birds, frogs, none of which we’d encountered along the way up when there were still too many descending hikers for our taste. We even ventured into a few raspberry patches to sample some of the wild vegetation.

As we approached the pretty lake at the trailhead, the stunning scenery and the isolation of our hike in a fairly popular area became clear–we were truly lucky to have such abundant opportunities to soak in these wild experiences as we journey from state to state.