Custer State Park...Needles Highway

 Wednesday, September 27, 2024

I was awake and having my coffee when Bob crawled out of bed. It takes him all of three minutes to get ready at morning and I wanted to shower and wash my hair...which takes considerably longer than three minutes! Rather than sitting around waiting on me, he headed up the hill by the apartment to an abandoned mine that he had discovered. At the mine he can find large chunks of pink quartz which he then lugs down the steep mountainside. Our hosta garden at home has a rock border and the quartz will be added to the collection.

Bob's hike took exactly the same time as it did for me to shower, dress and do my hair. I have naturally wavy/frizzy hair and I love the low humidity in the Black Hills. I run the flat iron through my hair and it STAYS straight and smooth. That never happens at home.

Driving down the gravel road from the apartment towards Custer State Park, we stopped to watch a pronghorn antelope. Instead of him running away, he actually came towards us and started grazing right next to our car. A little further on we came across a buffalo meandering down the side of the road eating grass. He was within a few feet of the car but never even looked up or acknowledged our presence. He appeared to be an older bison.

The AirBnB apartment where we stay is pretty much in the middle of nowhere!

One of the "new" stops I wanted to make on this trip was to the fire lookout tower on top of Mt. Coolidge. We had attempted to get there on our last visit but the road was closed. This time we were able to drive the very steep and curvy road. It was a little unnerving going up the narrow gravel road with no guard rails, especially the couple of times we met another car.

From the top of the tower you could see forever in all directions. With the binoculars (and my camera zoom) we could make out Crazy Horse waaaaayyy off in the distance. 

Mt. Coolidge Lookout Tower

View from tower

Zoomed in view of the Cathedral Spires from Mt. Coolidge

We also made a stop at the Heddy Draw Overlook just across the road from where we turned off to the fire tower. A short trail lead to a log pavilion overlooking the valley below. The breeze blowing through was heavenly. I could have spent the whole day there!

I wanted to eat lunch at the Alpine Inn in Hill City. We debated about driving north on Needles Highway to get there but it was getting close to lunch time and knew we wanted to take our time on the Needles Highway and not rush. Instead we cut back to the west to the town of Custer and went north on the highway from there. We arrived at the restaurant at 11:20 and immediately got an outdoor table on the porch. We ordered right away and our food came very quickly.

Alpine Inn, Hill City

Bob and I both got the Schnitzel. It came with Kaes Spaetzle (German mac & cheese), sauerkraut, red cabbage and German bread. Bob also got a side order of German potato salad. The food was delicious and just as we experienced in 2021, the perfect weather day made our meal even better. By the time we finished eating there was a line waiting to be seated.

From Hill City we drove Highway 87 which turns into the Needles Highway. Although much less than on our last visit, the yellow birch and aspen trees provided a bit of color to the hills.

Cathedral Spires

If there is a crack in a rock, Bob will try and go through it.

Needles Eye

Needles Eye Tunnel

Driving Needles Highway is a slow process because of the curvy roads and we were even slower due to our frequent stops at the scenic overlooks. Just past the Cathedral Spires area is our "secret" spot. I mentioned this in my 2021 blog post. The "secret" was discovered back in the 1960's when my family was on a vacation in the Black Hills. My dad noticed a narrow, gravel road and just wanted to see where it lead. At the top of the hill we found an abandoned mine. We re-discovered the location in the 1980's with our young sons and then accidently found it again in 2021. At that time I marked the location on Google maps but we could have easily found it by memory this time. We hiked up the hill, enjoyed the views and Bob came back with yet another piece of quartz from the abandoned mine.

Old mine tipple

The road to the mine is only accessible a short distance and then we hiked the rest of the way.

It was around 4 pm when we returned to the apartment. I mixed up the ingredients for tortilla soup, but stuck it in the fridge for the time being. Bob was anxious to get out and look for wildlife before it got dark so we left at 5:15 and drove the back roads into Wind Cave National Park as we had done two nights ago. The plan was to link up with the Wildlife Loop Road in Custer State Park, but our plan failed. The gravel road that we were going to connect with had a "road closed" sign. We assumed it was due to the buffalo roundup scheduled for Friday since the road lead to the parking area for the roundup and also the buffalo corral.

Our trip wasn't a total bust. We did see a small herd of buffalo, a pronghorn antelope and more prairie dogs that you could count. The lyrics "oh give me a home where the buffalo roam and the deer and the antelope play" kept drifting through my mind! 

Back at the apartment we warmed up the pot of soup for dinner. Afterwards we visited with the AirBnB owners (and now our friends!) in their home. 

It had been a long, full day and we turned in early anticipating what tomorrow would bring!