Custer State Park and Needles Hwy

24 Jun 2010--Headed out for a long driving day today...round-trip about 125 miles thru Custer State Park and along Needles Highway. Custer State Park covers 71,000 acres in the Black Hills, but we drove only about 25 miles of the Wildlife Loop Road. Once out of the park we immediately picked up the Needles Highway. Not sure how long it was, but at least 15-20 miles. The funny part of it is that from where we picked it up, at least the 1st 13-18 miles is nothing but forest, but then...

Aside from the entrance, we have a stitch photo of a scene in the park.

We weren't but a few minutes into the park when we were stopped by these Pronghorns in the road.

And not far from the pronghorns were the 1st herd of Bison we saw. There are about 1450 Bison in the park.

Look at the bird on the back of the bison, and the baby bison.

Down by the river.

These corrals are used to "cull the herd" every year. As I said, the herd averages about 1450, but every year it is reduced to 950 after selling off some of them, during auctions, for breeding stock or slaughter. The corrals are also used to brand the babies and vaccinate the females.

Here is a buffalo all by himself.

Fluffy came with us today. Still not sure if she would just rather stay home. haha

The park also has a herd of donkeys. Cathy read that they used to be used to truck people into the park, but after the roads were built they were released into the park. Therefore, they are semi-tame, or semi-wild, depending on how hungry they are I guess.

We saw 2 deer along the ride. There were supposed to be elk and big horn sheep here too, but we didn't see any.

Next came the previously-not-known to be famous Needles Highway. Depending on which way you enter from, you are either immediately impressed or left wondering for miles what the big deal is.

We entered from the "what's the big deal end", but at least we able to see some cool motorcycles. We were surprised by the number of these 3-wheeled motorcycles. We must have seen 100 of them. Most of the riders were at least my age...they looked very comfortable.

After miles and miles of trees, we finally got to see the spires.

There were more one lane tunnels.

This is the famous "Needles Eye.

And this is one of the lakes along the highway, called Sylvan Lake. It has a campground and resort about a mile apart, and here they have a day use area. It was really beautiful...I could definitely do about a month here.

This drive went from plains to mountains and then back again. Who knew that South Dakota was going to be so pretty?!