The Black Hills

Last weekend, Xander & I went with my mom, Aunt Jeanne & Uncle John and Grandma Leigh Anne to the Black Hills to climb Crazy Horse. Crazy Horse the monument -not the person. That would be weird. In the style of Mount Rushmore, the Native Americans are in the midst of a LONG process of carving a sculpture out of a mountain to honor one of their own in the Black Hills of South Dakota- which is only fitting since they were there first. The last time I visited Crazy Horse, it was mostly just a chalk outline on the mountain. That was probably about 17 years ago.

The park opens the monument one weekend a year to allow tourists to hike to the top and actually stand on the sculpture in progress. My grandma Leigh Anne has done this hike (it's not like we're rapelling or anything) 3 years now, but she says that this year was her last. She is 89, so we'll give her that. She's the one that organized this whole venture, and we had a lot of fun.

It was a beautiful day for the climb, and the first 3/4 of the way up we were really in the shady tree zone, going up and down the hills, following a path that changes each year, and enjoying the pseudo-community of the other hikers that were there as well. We wound up seeing mostly the same people the whole time, because there were several others who went as slow as us.

Xander had to take the road less traveled a few times because the hills offer some cool climbing places.

There were checkpoints along the way, and mercifully, a couple of them included port-a-potties, so we didn't have to deface the national monument. We could get water and snacks at those, and rest for a bit on the rocks.

Once we got into the serious part of the cimb, we used the service road that the dynamite blasters use to get up the hill, with big-rocked gravel and a few switchbacks. It was pretty steep and hard to walk on. The oldest and youngest of our crew had to take a lot of rest breaks, but we made it. Here we are way up by the face of the monument.

I suppose in decades to come, this will be cool, because someday they'll finish the monument and then you won't be able to climb on it anymore.


After we were done with the 6.4 mile hike, we determined that pie and ice cream were a just reward, so we went to the Purple Pie Place in Custer (where our hotel was) and celebrated.

That night we had dinner at The Cattleman's Steakhouse and Fish Market, where we were waited on by our not-so-authentic cowboy waiter, Miguel. I had prime rib and cowboy beer.
Actually, it was just Amber Bock served in a boot shaped glass. I shudder to think of what the definition of "Cowboy Beer" might be, since most other things that have the prefix of "Cowboy" are really disgusting, like Cowboy Toilet Paper (a fuzzy weed with a long spike- for use on the crusties), or Cowboy Kleenex (just shoot it out your nose onto the ground), etc.

While we were on our little trip, we did a lot of other touristy things, like visit Mount Rushmore (it only took 17 years to build that, and it has four faces!). We went to an educational movie while we were there (narrated by SD's own Tom Brokaw) and learned about the process of carving that monument. In the museum, we learned about the process they use for patching the cracks, that the original artist's concept included bodies for the 4 presidents, and some other interesting things. We didn't have the energy to visit the Crazy Horse visitor center after we were done with our hike, or I might have some similar interesting information for you.


We went to Historic Keystone, which is the closest town to Rushmore, and my Uncle John bought some motorcycle chaps (he's a retired Harley dude now, complete with leather chaps and a brand new tatoo), and the rest of us visited the tourist traps. Got to watch the taffy makers which was very interesting, and sample their wares, as well as the wares of various fudge shoppes.


We also hit the Black Hills Maze, which was a special treat for Xander. He'd been looking forward to that for weeks. It's a fun maze made of wooden walls-that they rearrange every 2 weeks, bridges and towers. He and Grandma Marilyn (mom) and I all did that together and we had a lot of fun while the others in our group went shopping.

One of the funnest things that we did was visit the Badlands and my Aunt Fae's ranch. I'll write about that in another post.