| After several months without a full weekend off, Leah was excited about the prospect of seeing something different away from our home state. South Dakota seemed like a good bet to fill our time with things to do. We started the drive at 6:30 from Denver, and arrived in Rapid City at 1:00 a.m. We arrived at the Harney Peak trail the next morning at 9:00 a.m. and started the easy hike up through interesting eroded granite remains - full of mica everywhere. The quantity of deciduous trees made the surroundings different enough to feel like we were a ways away from home. We soon reached an overlook, where I had a good opportunity to zoom in on the summit (right). This was at about the halfway point. The trail was very easy to follow and gentle all the way to the building on top. |
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| without the stairs and bridges built in to the granite, this could easily be a class 4 route. We took in the views and joked around before heading down. Our next destination was the largest statue in human history (even including the tallest Egyptian pyramid), still uncompleted - Crazy Horse. We also stopped by Mount Rushmore which was much less impressive (in size and endeavour at least). We headed out to the Badlands and Wounded Knee the next morning, finishing our South Dakota trip with the highpoint of Shannon County - 3,718' before driving through the saddening unincorporated town in Nebraska just South of Pine Ridge SD. |
