Custer State Park, South Dakota

Many people who visit Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming might feel justified in skipping South Dakota's Custer State Park. After all, if you have a National Parks Pass, you have free entry to Yellowstone, Glacier and all of the other amazing National Parks, so why pay $20 to visit a state park when you really only want to check Mount Rushmore off your bucket list?

Custer State Park is close enough to Mount Rushmore to identify the Presidents' likenesses from a lookout along the scenic ten miles of Iron Mountain Road that winds through Black Hills National Forest leading there.  Once you've already invested time and money to get there, what's another $20, especially when that covers admissions for an entire week?

After our full day of driving to see Mount Rushmore, we were happy to check into the Powder House Lodge in nearby Keystone.  Built on the site of the original Powder House where both blasting powder and bootleg liquor were once stored, it feels very much like staying in a log cabin but with all the modern amenities to which we've become accustomed, including a strong internet connection.  In addition to hotels, there are also lots of great campgrounds around for those who want to stay in an RV or camp out in tents.

Of course, you might also think that if you do make an exception to pay admission to a state park, it won't be for one apparently dedicated to Colonel George Custer, who seeking personal glory led his 7th Cavalry into massacre at the hands of the overwhelming force of combined native American nations at Little Big Horn.

Before his infamous Last Stand, however, Custer took as much pride in being a western path finder as in being an Indian fighter.  He actually rose to fame as a Civil War hero, earning brevet to the rank of Major General for the balance of the war  at age 25.

Custer surveyed the area where South Dakota later established the park that bears his name, and I guess they felt Custer had better name recognition than Peter Norbeck, though the Republican former Governor of South Dakota was the visionary behind developing this State Park.

Unlike most politicians, Norbeck actually earned having his name memorialized on Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway.  Norbeck had foreseen how the recent advent of automobiles could result in tourists driving west to see the natural wonders of South Dakota.

Traveling by horse and foot, Norbeck carefully staked out the magnficent Needles Highway through the eerie needle-like mountain peaks, including narrow tunnels blasted through solid rock.

An outstanding overview to the park can be found in the beautifully filmed documentary shown at the ultra-modern Visitors Center in what feels like a smaller-scale IMAX theater.  The film is narrated by Kevin Costner, whose "Dances With Wolves" serves as his credentials.

In the Custer Park documentary, Costner said that when the United States expanded west in the 1800s, there were 60 million buffalo on the plains.  Native Americans rightly saw buffalo, weighing as much as 2,000 pounds each, as representative of their great natural abundance of their world.

Within 100 years, the American buffalo had been hunted to near extinction, with only 1,000 left roaming the plains.

I remember as a child being sickened by stories of rifle men on trains picking off buffalo as they passed, leaving the meat to rot in the fields.  Later, I heard this was all part of the plan to starve native Americans, as if neither the people nor the buffalo had any right to live.  It's an ugly chapter in American history.

However, starting with a handful of domesticated buffalo, Custer State Park has provided a refuge for these noble beasts, and there are now about 1500 buffalo roaming within its boundaries.  Driving along the 18-mile Wildlife Loop Road, there are large herds and occasional strays.  At the end of September, there's a big fuffalo roundup by cowboys that looked very cool in the documentary.

Along the Wildlife Loop Road there are lots of other animals, including the fastest land animal in North America, the Pronghorn Antelope, which can run 60 mph, though we didn't see any break into more than a gentle trot.

We also saw lots of White-tailed Sheep, Burros, prarie dogs and, by the Needles Highway, very cool mountain goats.

With beautiful lakes, view points and caves, you could easily spend a week exploring the park, but even leaving by noon we wound up driving until 11 PM to get home.  Along the way, we caught glimpses of Black Hills National Park and the old west gambling town of Deadwood.

It was a terrific trip, but I would add the caveat to allow a few days to explore this part of South Dakota.  There's a lot more to see that we had time during our brief visit.

Best Hippie Town in South Dakota?
I can only attest there's a good KFC in Spearfish
based on our stop on the drive home.