Custer Wrapup

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Having done the drives around Custer State Park and the nearby monuments, we were ready for a real hike. A person at the visitor center had said the best hike in the area was one out of Sylvan Lake. Black Elk Peak (formerly Harney Peak) can be reached from a couple different trails that both start at Sylvan Lake. Trail #9 is a bit shorter than Trail #4 but instead of just using one or the other, we decide to take #4 up and #9 back. This will allow us to try a short spur trail off of Trail #4 called Little Devil’s Tower Trail on our way up to the main destination while our legs will be relatively fresh. If we did the hike in the opposite direction, we might bail out on Little Devil’s Tower (and likely would have!). 

With as many cars parked near the trailhead, I was worried the trail would be crowded. But there are enough other trails and activities in the vicinity of Sylvan Lake, that we didn’t find the trail too busy. Some of the early portions of the trail didn’t seem to be matching what we had on our Garmins. I suspect the park has rerouted some of the trail but it was easy enough to follow. We got to the split for Little Devil’s Tower and the trail started to get more challenging. Since it was uphill, we did okay but realized that we would be forced to come back down if we wanted to go home. It eventuality got steep enough that Chris decided I could do the rest of this section on my own. She knew that there was a group of hikers already ahead of me so I should have help if something happened. She had a nice view of the Cathedral Spires and even spotted a couple of mountain climbers that were sitting on top of the tallest spire. I have placed a small red dot on the climber but you will need to zoom in on the image.

View Along Trail #4

More Rugged Terrain

Look Closely at Climber Sitting Atop Spire

I got to the top of Little Devil’s Tower and had a great view. I could see the old fire tower on Black Elk Peak where we were heading. It took me quite a long time to locate the geocache hidden up here. It didn’t help that there was a group of kids that were having a snack 100 feet away but I spotted it and signed in before I climbed back down to find Chris patiently waiting. We both managed to get thru the narrow slot in the rock wall we had both climbed up but it took much longer finding good hand and foot holds to lower ourselves back down. We continued our way to the peak and would occasionally get a glimpse of the fire tower across the valley. 

View from Little Devil's Tower

Fire Tower on Black Elk Peak from Little Devil's Tower

Chris Comes Thru Crevice

Cathedral Spires

Another View of Black Elk Peak Fire Tower

The trail was steep and rocky in parts so we were amazed to see a group of people heading down on mules. We were having a hard time figuring out where to place our two feet much less the four they needed to account for! As we got closer to the peak we started to come across more hikers. There were also some metal stairs and railing which I’m sure Chris appreciated. The fire tower itself is an impressive stone structure built in 1939 by non other than the CCC. They do nice work and the 80 year old building is kept in fine condition and seems to survive what I suspect may be some harsh winters. The building is open and can be explored. It’s even possible to climb the stairs to the lookout point unless you’re afraid of heights like Chris. 

Leaving Custer State Park on Our Way to Peak

Mule and Rider Heading Down

Stairs Leading to Fire Tower

View from Black Elk Peak

Beautiful Stone Fire Tower

Elaborate Stairs at Tower

View from Inside Tower

It was breezy up here but we found a somewhat sheltered spot and ate our lunch. There aren’t many trees up on this peak but many of the one here have Indian prayer cloth tied to their branches. It’s something that we have grown accustomed to seeing in this part of the country. Having hiked about 5 miles to get here, the legs were very unhappy when we finished lunch and called them into service again. We followed Trail #9 back and while I suspect it was just as pretty of a hike as Trail #4 was coming up, but we were pretty tired as we worked our way back so we didn’t seem to find it as enjoyable and only stopped for a few pictures. The whole hike for us was just about 9 miles with about 2000 feet in elevation. The hike to the peak could be done in about 7 miles by taking Trail #9 in both directions but, in my opinion, it was worth the extra 2 miles to tackle this one as a loop with the spur trail along the way up. During the drive back to camp, we spotted more bison which we likely would have skipped if not for the blond one in amongst the rest of them. 

Tower Perched on Rocks

Holding Pond Below

Prayer Cloth in Tree

View on Way Back

Blond Bison

Track from Little Devil's Tower and Black Elk Peak

As is often the case, we were in need of a down day after our long hike and we figured a drive down to Hot Springs to the Mammoth Site would be just the ticket. It’s not too far of a drive so we timed it to stop by for lunch at what turned out to be a nice place - Daily Bread Bakery and Cafe. Besides lunch, we picked up some bread to take back with us. The Mammoth Site is a rather unique place. Back in the 1970’s, mammoth bones were discovered in the area as a contractor was preparing a site for a new subdivision. The landowner permitted the find to be investigated. As the dig progressed, paleontologists realized there was a large number of bones all located in a small area. They have surmised that the area used to be a large sinkhole that was full of water. As mammoths would try to get a drink, they would fall in and the steep walls of the hole prevented escape. It was decided to erect a large structure around the site which remains an active dig site and museum.

Entrance at Mammoth Site

Workers Exposing Bones

Big Teeth

The place was rather crowded but they offer tours every half hour or so and get people served with minimal wait times. The tour starts with a short movie to explain some of the common questions, then our tour guide takes us back into the excavation area. There is a walkway that circles the dig site. It was neat to see several groups of people working in the dirt. Our guide pointed out many of the exposed bones and tells a little story about each artifact. Many of the specimens are too fragile to be completely removed. They also have lots of other displays around the perimeter. Another room off the dig site holds all sorts of other displays and there is a lower level with even more lab space and displays but not much activity the day we were there. After the tour, we head back into the dig area to check it out and take more photos without our tour group around. This was a fun and informative stop and I highly recommend it.

Big Bear Skeleton

Skull and Tusks

The next day, Chris wasn’t feeling well enough to really go out and explore so I decided to go out on my own. There were a large number of geocaches placed in the southern portion of the Black Hills National Forest. Sixty of them were along a forest service road while another fifty-some were puzzle caches that formed the shape of a bison. I had previously looked at the puzzles and found them to be rather interesting. I had solved all but three of them so I knew I more than enough caches to keep me busy for the bulk of the day. I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of the road or trail so I came prepared to either hike or mountain bike. The first part of the drive is a quick jaunt of 14 miles to just south of the town of Pringle. Then turn onto Song Dog Drive. I planned to drive as far as the road was in reasonable condition. At first I was worried since there was a sign about logging trucks and I figured this may end up being a big waste of time. Fortunately the logging was down some other side road so I continued south and east along the Song Dog. There were some muddy stretches but not bad enough to stop. I drove about 9 miles passing by the first 60 geocaches. At one point I came upon a large group of cattle. I suspect they don’t don’t get much company and they took a bit of convincing to get to one side of the road or the other. I eventually got to the location of the puzzle caches and found a good parking spot near some big power towers. I figured if things went bad, having a substantial landmark to shoot for would be helpful.

So far the road was in good enough shape for bicycling so I changed into that gear and got the bike off the rack. I was amused by how muddy the bike was already just from being on the back of the Jeep. For the most part, the road was good although several of the side roads were challenging even for the bike. The terrain was steep enough at points that I needed to walk the bike. I seldom succumb to walking my bike but I figured there wasn’t anybody around to see me! I ended up getting about 30 of the caches before realizing I had a longish bike ride back to the car. I would have liked to have completed the full bison series but it wasn’t meant to be. The yellow smilies on the map are caches I found. It is definitely a pretty area and may need to consider a return trip in the future. 

Muddy Bike Before Riding

Scenic View

Geocaches Along Road and Bison

The following day, Chris was feeling a bit better but I was a little under the weather. We picked a small park next to downtown Custer for a bit of a walk. Big Rock Park turned out to be a bit hillier than we would have liked but we followed the trail up the park’s namesake - a big rock! It looks like there had been either a fire tower or other platform here based on the footings but now there is just a bit of a wooden platform up to the rock which gives a good view of town and the surrounding area. A home near the trailhead has a half dozen painted bison statues in their front yard.

Bison Herd

Trailhead Sign

Additional Big Rocks on the Way Up

Footings on the Big Rock

Looking Over Custer SD

With both of us starting to feel better, the next day we decided to check out one of the two nearby caves. Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument were our two options. They are both reasonably close so drive time wasn’t a factor. We ended up picking Jewel Cave and figured we could check out Wind Cave on some future trip back to the area. We knew that we needed to get to the place reasonably early just to make sure we got tickets for a tour. From the sounds of it, the tours fill up so if you show up late in the afternoon you might miss out. We got tickets and had about 90 minutes to kill before our tour. We figured that would work out well to check out the visitor center, walk some of the trails above ground and have lunch before our tour started. It turned out the park is installing new water lines so other than a short trail to an overlook, all the hiking trails were closed. The visitor center was okay but not good enough to kill all the time we had. So we headed to the car and grabbed our lunch and sat down at one of the picnic tables near the parking lot. Another couple joined us and we got a chance to talk with them. They were on a couple week holiday from the UK and were exploring some of the national parks and such in this area of the country. Their itinerary sounded much more hectic than we could handle but they needed to make the time they had work for them. Chatting with them helped to pass the time and before we knew it, it was time for our tour.

Jewel Cave Sign and Visitor Center

Wild Iris in Bloom

Calcite Crystal

We picked the Scenic Tour option. It’s the most popular tour and is about 80 minutes long. They also have a lantern tour, and a wild caving tour as well as a discovery tour which is wheelchair accessible. The Scenic Tour is limited to 30 people and we seemed to have a full crowd. We start by taking an elevator down 240 feet. This cave is a cooler (49 degrees) cave than some of the other ones we have done hadn’t really thought about it but the cave’s nearly constant temperature is the average temperature of the area over the course of the year. That’s why the caves we have done further south are warm caves. This cave was discovered back in 1900 by a couple of brothers who found a small hole with cold air coming out of it. Like a couple of yahoos, they went and got some sticks of dynamite to make the hole big enough to enter. When they saw all the calcite crystals, they thought they were rich. While pretty, these aren’t all that valuable. Over the years, the cave has been explored and mapped. Currently there is 202 miles of cave mapped but based on airflow volume, it is possible the cave is close to 5000 miles long and may even connect to Wind Cave.

By now we have done quite a few cave tours over the past 3 years and we are starting to recognize the cave humor the tour guides use. I suppose there are only so many jokes or stories to be had about caves. This cave was interesting, but we still hold Carlsbad Caverns National Park as our favorite. The features here are not at colorful or varied but still worth seeing. Apparently when a person discovers a new room in a cave, they get to name the room. One of the rooms we stopped in was called the Torture Room because the constant dripping of water the spelunkers heard was described as torture. I found the first aid kit in the corner of the platform of this room to have an interesting label. Before we knew it we had done the 1/2 mile loop and were back at the elevators but now at a lower level than we had started. On the drive back to camp, we stopped for a few geocaches along a forest service road. Just as we found the first one, we heard distant thunder. We managed to find one more but figured we should get off these dirt roads before the storm hit and turned them into mud. By the time we got back, we had a torrential downpour with some pea sized hail.

Torture Room First Aid Kit - Sounds Like an Oxymoron to Me

Stairs Leading Up

For our last full day in the area, Chris had realized that we were close to the oldest still active geocaches in South Dakota hidden in the Black Hills National Forest. There were two caches hidden by the same person on May 1, 2001. One of the two sounded like a 100 foot long rope was required to access it so we opted to go for the “easier” one. Our drive to the cache would take us to Hill City. At the visitor center in town, there is a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) museum upstairs. As we have explored this great country of ours, we have come across the beautiful work of many different CCC camps. A museum dedicated to this project was right up our alley. It was really neat to see all the old memorabilia, tools, pictures and uniforms associated with the CCC. I suspect if I had been born back in the 1920’s, I would have really enjoyed the type of work being done by these groups. Of course the $30 per month back then (~$600 equivalent today) would have been a challenge but food, clothing and shelter were provided. As we head back to Ditch Creek area, we stopped at a scenic spot next to Deerfield Lake for a short walk to a geocache. 

CCC Memorabilia

CCC Logging Tools

Inlet to Deerfield Lake

Overlooking Deerfield Lake at Cache Location

The trailhead for our geocache started right across the dirt road from Ditch Creek Campground. It’s a small forest service campground with about a dozen sites. Many of the sites would have been big enough for our rig and the drive back wasn’t too bad. But most of the people staying in this area are hardcore ATVers. There are probably hundreds of miles of ATV trails and being a nice Saturday, there we many dozens of people out on quads, trikes or motorcycles. In fact our trail up to the cache was on one of these ATV paths. Yesterday’s rain had left quite a few large puddles that had been turned into mud puddles by all the riders. We managed to get around them all and made sure we weren’t near one when a rider went by! The first 3/4 mile of the hike followed the switchbacks of the trail until we got to roughly the same elevation as the cache. From there it was a matter of bushwhacking the last quarter mile to the cache which we knew was on the edge of a cliff. The problem was that a heavy wind storm must have taken down half the trees in the woods in the last few years so there wasn’t even a deer path to follow. It was slow hike and when we got to within a couple hundred feet of ground zero, we realized we were still a bit lower so we needed to backtrack a bit to find a safe way up the additional 25 feet. We managed to find the pile of rocks “hiding” the cache and signed in. The view from up on the cliff was pretty impressive. We had only climbed about 450 feet but that was enough for a commanding view. 

Starting up Trail With Destination Cliff in Background

Wildflower Along Trail

View from Cache Location of Ditch Creek Campground and Beyond

Fallen Trees to Navigate Over, Under or Around

We tried to pick a different route back over to the trail but didn’t find anything better. We could hear some ATVs heading up the trail so we had an idea we were getting close. Once we got to the trail, instead of heading back down, Chris surprisingly suggested we head to another geocache just a bit further up the trail. That is normally my suggestion. As we continued up, we would hit sections of the trail that were a little challenging to hike but looked impossible to drive anything up or down. Just as we got to the geocache, a group of four ATVs were heading down and asked if we were okay or needed a ride. Part of me wanted to take them up on the offer just to see what it was like to go through some of the gnarly sections of the trail but we pass on their offer. 

View of Cliff from Parking Lot - Red V Marks the Spot

There are a handful of interestingly painted bison statues in downtown Custer. Our stay in Custer was coming to an end. It was a great stop and will need to come back here again to do more hiking, see more bison and visit another cave.