One of the popular routes out of Spearfish is through Spearfish Canyon and into the Black Hills. The scenery is lovely and apparently the fishing is good — the Spearfish River is the only one of the stocked rivers in the Black Hills in which the trout spawn naturally.
Frank Lloyd Wright apparently said that the Spearfish Canyon deserves to be as well known as the Grand Canyon. I’d dispute that, but it was a lovely drive.
We drove down the highway to see the Crazy Horse Monument. Neither of us is really in favor of carving up the landscape in this way (and that includes Mount Rushmore) but it seemed like a “must see”. We did a quick drive-by and then backtracked a bit to camp at Oreville State Forest.
Friday was a big day. We started by driving the Needles highway – quite an amazing experience, both because of the scenery and the road itself. It was commissioned for tourism and features 3 small tunnels, which are 8 feet wide and just over 9 feet high, as well as a series of bridges built as corkscrews called the Pigtail Bridges. We were really in the largest vehicle that could navigate this road. Building it was a bit of an engineering marvel.
The highway is named for the rock spires that it traverses. Not surprisingly, it is a popular climbing destination.
We stopped at the beautiful Sylvan Lake for a hike and lunch. We did the beginning and end sections of the Sunday Gulch Trail. The beginning is a very steep descent into the gulch.
We were discouraged from continuing by a) rain, b) wrong footwear c) the length of the trail. However, the trail is a loop from the lake. When the rain stopped, we walked in the other direction. It was really spectacular terrain. (Again, I am overusing spectacular, but I would not want to say anything less.)
After Sylvan Lake, the road becomes even more interesting. The next tunnel is the Needle’s Eye, named for a rock formation. However, I will always think of the “Eye” as the long and tiny passage through the rock.
The third tunnel is also tight, but seems easy compared to the other two. It takes you out to the Pigtail Bridges, which spiral down and take you to the Custer State Park Wildlife Loop Road. This is another great place to see bison. But we have already posted many bison photos.
The Loop Road feeds into the Iron Mountain Road, with more great scenery. The road was specifically designed to slow traffic so that travelers could enjoy the scenery. This road also has 3 tunnels, although these are more manageable, being larger. There are also several pigtail bridges.
From the rest stop there is a great viewpoint to Mount Rushmore — one of the major motivations for the road was to provide views of Mount Rushmore.
The Iron Mountain Road ends in the tourist town of Keystone, where we stopped for ice cream. Keystone seems to have many attractions, but we carried on to spent the night in the suburbs of Rapid City.