theWWWsite
Photos from 3rd June
The natural entrance to the Windy Hole Cave complex is at the bottom middle left of this picture. The caves were discovered in 1881.
The roof of the cave has this honeycombed effect.
There were lots of elk by the side of the road.
At Custer State Park we saw bison herds, and forest.
The Needles section of the scenic drive was interesting and spectacular, with a tunnel in the roadway.
Sylvan Lake was pretty and imposing and we could have stayed here a lot longer to explore, but time did not allow us more than a quarter of an hour.
You pay your entrance fee and this is the first view you get of Crazy Horse Mountain. The scale of the excavations are amazing, as this is the world's largest sculpture. Boston-born Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski who had worked on Mount Rushmore, started the project in 1947 and continued work carving and blasting the mountain until his death in 1982. Since then his family have continued this private project, without any government or state funding. The work remains about half completed. The story is more amazing than the project. Read about it at www.crazyhorse.org
The Visitor Centre and Museum is very interesting, and shows a model of the finished project, which is here the foreground against the reality of today's mountain behind. All of the four President's faces of Mount Rushmore would fit inside the sculptured Crazy Horse head. The project is so vast.
The walkway to view Mount Rushmore passes columns with flags, with each column bearing the names of four of the US States.
Mount Rushmore was as we had expected. Worth a visit. How could we
possibly have come all this way and not seen it?
As we approached Spearfish we visited this waterfall on Route 14A as we drove the scenic route.
>>> Next Day >>>