Custer (Mt. Rushmore)

My plan this morning was to visit Mt. Rushmore , then drive the rest of the Needles highway / iron mountain road. However as soon as I started driving I could see that a heavy fog had settled in the valleys between the mountain peaks and I soon hit whiteout conditions. When I approached Mt. Rushmore, the mountain was not even visible. I decided to try again later in the day. Instead, I headed back to Custer State park to spend a little more time on the wildlife loop road.

In that area, the thick fog had lifted and I just had a heavy overcast, which was actually fine for wildlife photography. I started down the road and saw plenty of bison. I also ran into several groups of pronghorn antelope. One group led me off of the main paved road onto a gravel road that led up a hill. I decided to follow it and see where it took me and what I would find. I spotted some small furry creatures running around. When a few stood on their hind legs and started chittering, I quickly realized that I had hit upon a Prairie Dog town. I spent some time with them, then decided to head back to Mount Rushmore to see if it was visible.

By the time I arrived, the heads were framed against a blue sky. And actually the light was pretty harsh. I decided to walk the Presidential trail which is something like 450 step on a trail that loops down then back up to the viewing platform. It always amazes me that a few steps (and these were like 10 steps, then a platform) is listed as a difficult hike. This is probably a commentary on the general health and fitness of our population that the difficulty of the path. By the time I arrived back at the platform, they sky had clouded up again, and provided more even light on the carved mountain.

I had planned a short hike for today, but the driving back and forth ate up the time that would have been allotted for that activity. As well, I was pretty tired from being up late last night troubleshooting issues on the home front. I decided to call it a day and head back to my room.

Tomorrow I will visit a couple of the caves in the area.

Additional images are found in the Gallery .