Our Tour of the Black Hills of South Dakota

NOTE: This is the 2^nd of a multi-part series chronicling my family's two week vacation in the summer of 2010.

For links to the entire series, click here.

After spending the night in a nice campsite at Webster State Park in Kansas, we repacked our 2001 Chevy Blazer and headed north. Though we drove across a large part of Nebraska, we only stopped for gas in that state. Our goal was to make Rapid City, SD where we planned to stay the night.

Webster State Park Campsite in Kansas

We had reservations for one night at Sleep Inn & Suites, where we enjoyed a spacious, comfortable room and a Deluxe continental breakfast the following morning. Including all applicable taxes, the room cost us $141.95. That's a lot more than the $12 it cost us the four of us to spend the night in the Kansas campground the previous night, but we had previously decided that a comfortable bed, hot showers, and breakfast we didn't have to cook on a camp stove would be worth the increased expense every few days. This proved to be a wise decision with unforeseen benefits as well because we were traveling with two teenage daughters. An electrical outlet to charge their cell phones was perhaps the most welcome amenity the hotel offered them, and the free wireless internet ran a close second.

We had originally planned to wake the next morning, repack our faithful Blazer, visit Mount Rushmore, then hit the road headed to Yellowstone National Park. But we were once again thankful for our flexible itinerary after we perused the brochures for tourists in the hotel lobby. There was so much to see and do in the nearby Black Hills, we decided to spend the day exploring. That night I searched for and found a campground in Montana where we'd be able to spend the following night en route to Yellowstone.

This change in plans proved prudent and provided a far more enjoyable day than we'd have experienced had we proceeded with our planned 600 mile drive to Yellowstone that day. We were able to see Mount Rushmore and more!

Rushmore was far more impressive than it ever appeared to me in pictures. A $10 parking fee allowed all four of us to enter the park. We took several photos (see below) and spent $38 on souvenirs from the gift shop. There's a hiking trail along the base of the mountain monument that we didn't take advantage of because we weren't prepared for hiking. Had I spent a little more time researching the park and discovered the trail's existence, we'd have worn proper footwear and traversed that trail. I guess that experience will have to await a future visit.

Mount Rushmore

We had picked up a map marked with attractions in the Black Hills from our hotel lobby the night before. When we left Mount Rushmore, we headed for the Crazy Horse Memorial. Arriving at the entrance to the monument we learned this would cost us $27 ($10 per person or $27 for a carload). Because the monument wasn't even completed, because we'd just visited Rushmore for a total of $10, and because we planned to see and do more that day, we passed on paying the $27 and turned around at the gate. The picture below shows a profile view of the monument taken from the gate, but that's as close as we got. We may return and visit in the future, when the monument is complete and hopefully the price is more inline with nearby Mount Rushmore.

Crazy Horse Memorial

Not far down the road we stopped at Thunderhead Falls, an old gold mine with a waterfall inside. For $6 each, we gained entrance to the man-made cave gouged out of the side of the mountain. Though the tour was self-guided, a short recording told the history of the mine before we entered. The 600 foot horizontal shaft was carved out over the course of twenty years. Visible inside the cave are the scars of the drill bits. Black powder was packed into the hand-drilled pockets and ignited to shatter the solid rock to be combed for the gold that would sustain the owners of the mine for the two decades it operated. Finally, at the end of that twenty years, their last blast brought down the cascade of water that would force them to abandon the mine. The water from above turned the floor of the mine into a small but fast-flowing river that prevented further excavation. Our daughters were more impressed by the semi-tame chipmunks that scurried around close to the mine entrance than they were by the mine or the waterfall inside. There were picnic tables in the shade at the parking area so we stopped here to eat sandwiches with sounds of the nearby river and a waterfall providing background music.

Thunderhead Falls

Outside the Mine

Inside the Mine

We next drove just a few miles down the road to Black Hills Caverns where we paid $9.75 each for a one-hour guided tour of the caverns. If you like caves, this is an excellent attraction. You have to duck often as many of the passages have low-hanging rock overhead. Some passages are quite narrow and there are a lot of steps. The tour descends nearly 250 feet below the surface before you head back up and out the same place you entered. The interior of the caves aren't as scenic as some of the more famous caverns around the country, but we felt the tour was worth the price of admission. What the cave lacked in scenic beauty was made up for by the stories of previous spelunkers' mishaps told by the tour guide. If you're physically up to the trek, this is an enjoyable subsurface hike.

Black Hills Caverns

We left the caverns and headed for our last stop in the Black Hills. Deadwood, SD. The mining town famous for the death of Wild Bill Hickock and the life of Calamity Jane. We enjoyed our visit, but it wasn't exactly what we expected. Though the architecture on main street had an antique feel, there was little to see aside from casinos. We entered the Number 10 Saloon, which had a section supposedly built with the same floor plan as the original where Wild Bill was murdered.

Main Street, Deadwood

We took our pictures in front of the fireplace where Hickock was supposedly shot in the back of the head. A little later we realized no one was really sure if that was the ACTUAL location where the Bill died. Walking down the other side of Main Street, we came upon a sign claiming to mark the REAL location of the original Number 10 Saloon where Hickock met his fate. We later learned that several fires had destroyed the town in the years since that fateful day when a bullet from Jack McCall's pistol put Deadwood on the map forevermore. We may never know with certainty the exact location, but the town thrives today as tourists like us come to see where the famed gunfighter fell.

Number 10 Saloon, Deadwood

We then drove to Mount Moriah Cemetery on the hill above Deadwood.  For only one dollar each, we received admission to the Cemetery and a map marking the locations of graves of notable Deadwood citizens.  Wild Bill and Calamity Jane's grave sites, side-by-side, were obviously the most visited.  Many of the names on the map meant nothing to us, but still the cemetery offered an interesting glimpse into the history of the Old West.  The cemetery had a section for veterans, a section where victims of the epidemics of 1878-1880 lay, and a Chinese immigrants section.  A plaque in front of the latter informed us those immigrants were later disinterred and shipped back to their home villages in China for burial.  Finally, we trekked to the grave of Seth Bullock.

Mount Moriah Cemetery, Deadwood

Wild Bill Hickock's Marker

Calamity Jane's Marker

Veteran's Section

Deadwood Overlook at Mount Moriah Cemetery

Chinese Immigrants' Section

Seth Bullock's Grave High Above Mount Moriah Cemetery.

The map showed his grave far outside the boundaries of the cemetery proper, a distant hike and a steep climb far above the graves of the rest of Deadwood's deceased.  We wondered why this man (and his wife) were so far removed from the other eternal residents of Mount Moriah.  I'd never heard of Seth Bullock, so I didn't know if this was to honor the man or a post-mortem exile of sorts.  It wasn't until after we returned from vacation and I had time to research Bullock that I discovered the reason this was chosen as his final resting place.  Bullock was a good friend of President Theodore Roosevelt.  When Roosevelt died, Bullock erected a monument to honor the fallen President high upon the hill on the other side of Deadwood Gulch.  Bullock's grave site, so far removed from the others at Mount Moriah, offered a clear view of the monument to his friend at the time of his burial.  Now, almost 100 years later, the trees covering the hillside block the view.  And now I know the next time we travel to Deadwood, we'll make the climb to see the Friendship Tower, Bullock's memorial to Roosevelt.

The next stop on our vacation would be Yellowstone National Park, but that was ~600 miles down the road.  That 600 miles provided quite a bit of scenery and a little adventure, so our next article will chronicle our trip from the Black Hills to Yellowstone.