South Dakota folks, Black Hills?

Hi all,

Looking for some help. planning a road trip to the Black hills this summer 7 or so day trip including a day or day and a half travel time on either end, so call it 4 days of time out there give or take.

Plan is some camping/hiking sightseeing. Been using Gaia to find potential places to go out there. Any recommendations for places/trails that I need to check out. For driving, I'm just running a stock 21 SR.

Any folks from the area got recommendations for where to hit up while we're out there?

 

Definitely check out Custer State Park and the needles highway.

 

Needles Highway is 87, right? Looking at maps to figure things out. Thanks!

 

One of my favorite places I've ever been is driving & hiking along Spearfish Canyon in late September when the leaves are changing.

 

Yea its inside of Custer State Park.

 

This is a general route I'm looking at for general place to pace touring when we are out there. plan is the second week of June.

 

If you have any interest in the whole Wild West stuff, and based on how close that route takes you, I'd for sure make at least a brief stop in Deadwood for touristy stuff. You can check out Kevin Costner's bar, signs/placards for all the outlaw shootings, and Mount Moriah cemetery for final resting spot of Wild Bill Hicock and Calamity Jane.

I'm sure you know about Mount Rushmore. Frankly it's my least favorite place and would spend very little time there. Believe they charge for parking too. Would rather spend time in Jewel Cave Natl Monument but that's off your route.

Some of the best spots I found were just driving around on forest roads. You probably can't go wrong seeing great sights that way, Black Hills are beautiful.

 

Yeah. Mt Rushmore might just be a "see what we can from the road" thing. Jewel Cave looks awesome. Right now the route is just general. I figure I've got like 5 months to nail it down, so I'm just working on seeing what's feasible.

The route was literally just Gaia connecting a few places so I'd have an idea of where driving is. Plan is basically drive past cool stuff and get hiking in, in the Black Hills. not much beyond that.

 

Pactola Reservoir, Jenny’s Gulch, Sylvan Lake and trails around Nemo. The northern hills, Spearfish in particular is one of my favorite places. Around there, Crow Peak and Tinton Rd will take you up the hills. Spearfish Canyon is cool, and if you continue on the gravel past spearfish canyon lodge, things are really nice.

 

Thanks for the input all! Jewel Cave National Monument looks WAY cool. Mt Rushmore was a check it off the list thing, and that area in general looks good. Here's another possible route so I can add Jewel Cave. Too many good options! LOL. I may end up scrubbing Rushmore. Really show my little guy the out of the way places instead. As a note, I made an alternate south of Lead that cuts off some of that bump by taking Brownsville road, I think it is.

 

I was just up there before Thanksgiving. Nothing was open, but it was nice without the crowds. You'll definitely want to check out the Bad Lands on your way in. Like mentioned above most of the cool spots I found were from just going down dirt roads. Be aware that a lot of trails out there require a permit to be on them. You can buy one from most gas stations and get a map.

 

thanks. I'm thinking more and more of skipping Rushmore. I've been there once and wanted to show my kid, but it's such a tourist trap now. Looking at getting a trail permit so we can get away from it all a bit more.

 

Mount Coolidge lookout tower is cool, its in Custer state park on 87 south of 16.

 

Also Iron Mountain road 16A.

 

If you go south - Wind Cave N.P. is great place to visit and Hot Springs as well. Avoid direct contact with the buffalo - my wife and I have witnessed some amazing interactions between critters and vehicles over the years.....

 

Thanks for all the great info folks! I'm definitely looking at getting a SD offroad pass and a state park pass so we can go to Custer SP. The more I look at things the more I'm thinking that if we do Rushmore it will be a quick stop and see it and that's it. Real goal is to hit trails and offroad, well at least as much as I can do with my stock SR. Really just looking for views and some hiking. Not a real technical driver.

 

You can see Mt Rushmore from the Iron Mountain Hwy:

 

Another place to check out is Devil's Tower in SE Wyoming, about an hour or so from Deadwood IIRC.

Where you planning on staying? Hill City is fairly central to a lot of things and Spring Creek Inn is a really nice little place to stay. https://www.springcreekinn.com/

 

Love the picture of Rushmore, may bypass actually going there since there's ways to see it aside from stopping in. Road tripping it. looking at camping 2-3 different spots. Not much more than a day or so in each area. Devil's tower is on our list of something to see. Not a huge priority so it will probably be a quick drive to see it before swinging north to head home thing. Only real "planned" hotel stay would be going to Bismarck ND on the last night before the LONG push home.

 

Long talk with family led me to reserving camping spot for at least 1 night of the trip. it's gonna be a LONG day, but my little man is prepped for it. Figured that with the timing for the trip, we needed to get something. and the site is smack in the middle of where we're looking to be.