Custer State Park, South Dakota - October 11th to 13th, 2022
Custer State Park rivals many of our national parks in regards to scenery, wildlife, and history. We’ve been there twice before. The first time was just a half a day while we were visiting the neighboring Wind Cave National Park (Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota - June 25th to 27th, 2021). The second time was earlier this season, when we combined it with Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial (South Dakota Black Hills - April 27th to 29th, 2022). This time we spent three nights and two full days exclusively inside Custer State Park.
Tuesday was a long driving day for us, from Pelican Lake to Custer State Park, about six and a half hours according to Google Maps. At the crack of dawn, we dumped and filled our tanks, then hit the road. It felt good to be driving on backroads again instead of the interstate. Keith finds it more relaxing to drive on small highways. We both find it more interesting to pass right through the middle of small towns. Stopping at a local cafe or city park is more enjoyable than an interstate rest area, gas station or truck stop. What Keith did not find relaxing was the wind that day. In the middle of the day, winds were 30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. He kept his speed down to stay in control of our Red Tail Lodge (our camper van), as the high profile of our van gives the wind a lot of surface area to push against.
Our first stop for the day was a little coffee shop in Redfield called Simply Charming. It made for a nice morning restroom break. Along with our chai lattes, Ann had a raspberry white chocolate scone. Keith decided to skip the treats since we were planning to stop for ice cream later in the day. The scone was not as good as the ones from Bear’s Paw Bakery in Jasper (Jasper, Alberta - September 17th to 19th, 2022), but it was still tasty. The coffee shop had a nice hometown feel with a group of locals sitting around shooting the breeze.
We stopped for gas and a quick restroom break in Pierre, then stopped at Midland Park in Midland to eat lunch. It was too windy to eat out on the picnic tables, but our Red Tail Lodge provided all the shelter we needed. The restrooms in the park were closed for the season, so we drove back to the Midland Food & Fuel to purchase a couple of Cokes and a bag of chips so we could use their restroom.
The stretch from Midland to Rapid City was the windiest part of the day. Tumbleweeds were blowing across the road in front of us. From Wall to Rapid City, we were back on the interstate, as there really isn’t an alternative paved road to take through that area. Keith was not looking forward to the 50 miles on the freeway in the wind, but traffic was light.
During the day, Ann was in charge of the fly swatter. There were several dozen flies that managed to get inside our van the evening before. As Ann eliminated them, one by one, it seemed like more flies would appear. Somehow, she managed to get them all over the course of the whole day. When we arrived at the campground, we swept out the floor of the van to remove all the fly carcasses.
Along our drive that day, we spotted quite a bit of wildlife, but since Ann was busy with the fly swatter, she didn’t get any pictures. The only pictures she took were of the tumbleweeds and a deer. We saw snowy egrets along the shore of a lake, hawks flying overhead, antelope walking against the wind, deer climbing out of a lake, and lots of pheasants along the side of the road. We even saw pelicans out on a lake. They must have been confused about which lake to swim in, because we didn’t see any pelicans in Pelican Lake while we were there.
Our last rest stop for the day was in Rapid City. Ann was looking forward to having Silver Lining Creamery ice cream again since she enjoyed it so much in Fargo (Fargo, North Dakota - October 7th to 8th, 2022). We parked along Main Street and fed the parking meter some quarters. When we walked up to Silver Lining Creamery, we saw a sign on the door saying they were opening late that day because of a software update. Bummer!
Of course, Ann was still in the mood for ice cream since she was looking forward to it all day. A quick internet search found Armadillos Ice Cream Shoppe just half a mile down Main Street. After feeding the parking meter another quarter, we walked down to Armadillos. They served soft serve ice cream instead of hard, hand-dipped ice cream, but it was a high quality soft serve. It wasn’t the ice cream Ann was anticipating having, but the vanilla-chocolate twist in a waffle cone was satisfying.
As we walked out of the ice cream shop, we looked up. The building right across the street said “The Fairmont Creamery Co.”. How did we miss that? Well, it was an older building and the words were spelled out with the bricks. It no longer is a creamery. It currently contains a coffeehouse. Whew! That could have been embarrassing if we missed a great creamery right across the street. The Fairmont Creamery Company started in 1884 in Omaha, Nebraska. Fairmont Creamery opened more than three thousand cream stations throughout the country (history.nebraska.gov/blog/fairmont-creamery-company). The company operated until 1980, before closing down all of its locations.
As a consolation prize, we enjoyed our walk along Main Street. The downtown area of Rapid City seems very nice. In addition to the historical old buildings, there are statues of prior presidents almost on every street corner. Currently, the first 43 presidents are represented by life-size statues in the city. Sculptor Jim Maher is working on the statue for the 44th president, Donald Trump. No date or location has been announced yet for the latest addition (listen.sdpb.org/arts-and-culture/2021-10-08/sculptor-of-donald-trumps-presidential-statue-wants-to-be-fair-and-objective). We’ve added Rapid City to the list of places to come back to and fully explore.
By the time we arrived at the Blue Bell Campground in Custer State Park, the winds had died down. To our surprise, the water was still turned on in the campground. Not only was there a fresh water spigot to fill our tanks, the flush toilets and hot showers were still operating. Score! The only downside was that the closest dump station was over near the State Game Lodge, but it’s not that far away.
Wednesday morning we drove the Wildlife Loop. We’ve done this drive before (Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota - June 25th to 27th, 2021), but we felt a little rushed the last time. From Blue Bell Campground, we went clockwise around the loop, the opposite direction as before.
We stopped at Heddy Draw for the view. It was a cold morning, in the 30’s. Clouds were still hiding the sun. The temperature would not have been so bad if it wasn’t for the 25 mph bitter cold wind. And were those snow flakes falling from the sky? Yes, yes they were. Brrrr!
Our next stop was at Legion Lake Lodge to take some pictures. The lodge sits on the shores of Legion Lake. The sun would not cooperate and stayed hidden, but the setting is still beautiful. We didn’t linger long. It was no longer snowing, but the wind was still freezing cold.
We continued our drive, enjoying the fall colors of the trees. The sun starting making an appearance every now and then. We didn’t see any wildlife before stopping at the Wildlife Station Visitor Center at the southeast side of the loop. Oh, well. Wildlife is just that, wild. There are no guarantees to seeing any. The visitor center was closed, but the vault toilets were open, which was the main purpose of our stop.
While we were stopped at the visitor center, we could hear sandhill cranes. We looked up to watch a couple of large flocks of cranes fly high overhead.
Then Ann spotted a small herd of pronghorns. As she started walking around the backside of the building to get a better view of the pronghorns, she came across two sharp-tailed grouse.
After taking a few pics of the grouse, she had plenty of time to capture the pronghorns as they hung out near the road. The Wildlife Station Visitor Center is aptly named!
As we approached the buffalo corrals, our doubts about seeing bison during our drive were washed away. The annual Buffalo Roundup was almost two weeks prior, on October 1st, but there were still hundreds of bison at the corrals. We missed the roundup, with people on horseback herding the buffalo, but we got a show with people on ATV’s and pickup trucks herding the bison. We’re not sure what the herders were trying to do. They seemed to be chasing the buffalo around in circles. Perhaps they were having difficulty getting them to go where they wanted. Maybe they were just trying to get them out the gates and out of the corrals. Regardless of what they were trying to accomplish, they gave us a nice demonstration with buffalos on the run.
We were hoping to check out the new Bison Center which just opened this year. However, it looked like the road to it was closed. The sign said the road was closed to through traffic, but we weren’t sure what that meant. With all the commotion of the ATV’s, trucks, and bison, we didn’t attempt to drive down the road.
Our last stop on the loop was the Prairie Trail. The sign at the trailhead said the trail was three miles long, but AllTrails claimed it was only 2.1 miles. The trail was better than we expected. With a name like Prairie Trail, we were expecting an easy stroll through prairie grass. However, the trail goes through a variety of terrains, from prairie grass to oak trees, across small streams, up and down some steep slopes. It even goes by a prairie dog town. We clocked the hike at 2.1 miles with an elevation gain of 436 feet which we completed in a little over an hour.
At the start of the trail, a couple small groups of wild turkeys entertained us for a few minutes. From the highest points along the trail, there are views out over the rest of the prairie.
In the distance we spotted the wild donkeys on a hillside. The burros are known for approaching vehicles and begging for food. The park keeps their numbers to about 11. Six of them were auctioned off this year (www.blackhillsfox.com/2022/03/15/burros-up-grabs-taking-piece-custer-state-park-home/). Before we descended down, we saw a couple of vehicles stopped on the road near where we spotted the burros. We’re guessing the people in the cars spotted the donkeys, or the donkeys came up to the road.
It was now 1 pm and we were hungry. The cold food we had in our Red Tail Lodge did not appeal to us. A hot meal to warm us up on this cold day sounded better. We completed our dive of the Wildlife Loop at the Blue Bell Lodge. The restaurant at the lodge serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The historic Blue Bell Lodge is a log cabin lodge built from local timber in the 1920’s by C.L. Jensen who was an executive of the Bell Telephone Company. So the name of the lodge comes from the symbol of the company.
The lodge is beautiful, both inside and out. It was a nice, warm atmosphere to enjoy our hot lunches. Ann opted for the BBQ buffalo brisket sandwich while Keith ordered the buffalo stew. They both were excellent. Of course, we also had to order dessert, despite being rather full from our lunch. We switched roles this time. Keith ate the skillet brownie sundae while Ann enjoyed the cinnamon apple crisp. Normally Ann goes for the chocolate and Keith has a tendency to order fruit pies. Aren’t we the daring ones to mix it up a little.
Well, now we needed to work off some of those calories. We decided to go for another short hike, preferably one protected from the wind. The last time we were at Custer State Park, a ranger recommended the Grace Coolidge Walk-In Fishing Area trail. The trailhead at the south end was a little hard to find. There are no signs for it from the road. There is a little fishing pond area across the road from the Grace Coolidge Campground. Once we turned off the main road to the fishing pond, we found the sign that pointed down a short, rough road to the trailhead.
We didn’t hike the full trail. We turned around after hiking for about half an hour. That’s probably not enough to work off the calories form our desserts, but it was getting late in the day and the air temperature was dropping with the sun. It was a pretty trail. The wide trail follows the Grace Coolidge Creek, passing by rock formations and trees decked out in their fall colors. There are several low-head dams that form small pools along the creek. The pools reflect the surrounding rocks and trees.
The trail crosses the creek quite a few times. However, there are ways to keep your feet dry at each crossing. Some have rocks you can use as stepping stones, others have wooden foot bridges. Some of the foot bridges have a comfortable width to walk across. However, a couple of them are pretty narrow, so we needed to concentrate a little to keep our balance as we crossed over them.
Along the trail we saw markers indicating this was a Volksmarch Trail. Volksmarch is a term we are familiar with. When we lived in Germany over 30 years ago, we would participate in Volksmarches. They are organized walks or Wanderungs, usually held on a weekend. In addition to getting some exercise and fresh air, they were social events. Sometimes there would be refreshments, usually including beer, sold at stops either along the trail and/or at the end. For your small participation fee, you may also receive a finishing medal or pin. We didn’t realize before that Volksmarches were a thing in the United States. There is a national American Volkssport Association along with many local chapters, such as the Black Hills Volkssport Association, the ones who posted the markers on the Grace Coolidge Trail. Their mission is to promote non-competitive sports for fun, fitness, and friendship. We’ll have to add these to our future activities!
Thursday was another cold and windy day, but it was sunny most of the day. A friend of ours recommended their three favorite hikes in Custer State Park. They are Black Elk Peak Loop, Sunday Gulch Trail, and Prairie Trail. We hiked the Prairie Trail on Wednesday. The other two trails start at Sylvan Lake. Our original plan was to hike the Black Elk Peak, but it is a seven mile hike which, for us, means getting an early start. However, we were not very motivated to start hiking in the morning when the temperatures were close to freezing before you factor in the wind chill from the 20 mph winds. The Sunday Gulch Trail was listed as a four mile hike. Plus, being in a gulch, we were hoping it wouldn’t be as windy as on top of a peak. We could wait until after lunch to start hiking, after the sun warmed up the air a little bit.
We’ve heard that the Sylvan Lake is the prettiest area in Custer State Park. We can affirm that. The scenery is simply stunning. There are three routes leading up to Sylvan Lake. Two are along the Needles Highway which has narrow tunnels with low clearances. Because our van was just a little too large for those tunnels, we drove up the one route without tunnels, highway 89 out of the town of Custer.
Sylvan Lake is at a higher elevation than Blue Bell Campground and most of the rest of Custer State Park. It is above 6000 feet compared to the campground which is below 5000 feet. Higher elevation means colder temperatures. After eating our lunch in the van at the trailhead, we bundled up and hit the trail at about 12:30 pm. Temperatures were in the 30’s with winds around 20 mph.
The Sunday Gulch Trail starts out along the shoreline of Sylvan Lake. Rock formations rose high above our heads. A couple of large boulders formed islands in the lake.
Behind the dam of the lake, the trail starts descending down into a gulch filled with rocky boulders. Sturdy metal handrails make the steep descent more manageable. Did the gulch protect us from the wind? No. It acted more like a wind tunnel. Along the way, we passed over a small patch of ice. The ice wasn’t really in our way, but it reminded us how cold it was. The cold wind and the metal railings whisked the heat away from our bodies. By the time we finished the steep section, one of Ann’s fingertips was numb. She has circulation issues, so she actively pays attention to prevent frostbite. We stopped while she did “the bird” to return blood flow to her fingers. The bird is a trick we learned several decades ago while skiing in the Alps. You flap your arms, letting your hands slap the back of your shoulders. It may look silly, but it is pretty effective at forcing the blood out to your fingers. Ann credits the technique with saving her fingers from frostbite while skiing at Andermatt in Switzerland.
Once we were past the steep section of handrails, the gulch widened a bit and we found ourselves surrounded by trees instead of just rock. This finally provided us with the wind protection we were hoping for. Even though we were still descending, our bodies warmed up and we started to shed some layers of clothing. Ahhhh, that’s better!
For a couple of miles, the trail winds through the trees and through a couple of short, but not steep rocky gullies. As the trail starts to circle back, the ascent begins. Now we are really shedding layers as our bodies are working a little harder. The way back is not as steep (if you take the loop in the counter-clockwise direction) and, consequently, is a little longer. It passes pretty close to the Needles Highway, but the highway is not very noticeable from the trail. We only spotted the road a handful of times and only heard traffic noise a couple of times.
As we approached Sylvan Lake, the terrain got rockier again, along with the return of the wind and cold. However, the rock formations we passed through were gorgeous.
Even though AllTrails reported this trail as just under four miles, somehow we managed to go 4.8 miles with an elevation gain of 889 feet in about three hours. It was a fun and beautiful trail. The trail definitely belongs high up in the list of our favorite hikes.
Even after three visits to Custer State Park, we feel like there is still more to explore, such as biking the Needles Highway and hiking Black Elk Peak. We’ll be back.
Check out our related video: Custer State Park, South Dakota
(Ann)