Scenic Drives & Sylvan Lake

Custer State Park served as the gracious host for our last full day of vacation.

We had a very quick breakfast at the Legion Lodge restaurant. Even though it was 6 miles from our lodge it took about 20 minutes. These are definitely park roads, I don't think I ever got above 30 mph, and you know I tried! The big plus at Legion Lake is they serve Starbuck's Coffee. A rarity in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It tasted divine. So did the cinnamon rolls we got to-go. They were approximately the size of Maddie's head! The restaurant served a full breakfast menu too, but we were short on time to get to the Jr. Naturalist program at the Peter Norbeck Visitor's Center.

For reference, the State Game Lodge serves breakfast and a breakfast buffet, but no Starbuck's. I know the Blue Bell Lodge serves breakfast, but I don't know about a buffet or Starbuck's. Legion Lake – no buffet.

When we arrived at the Visitor's Center, Maddie ended up being the only kid at the Naturalist program. The topic of the day was “Archeology.” So we all got an archeology lesson. The focus was on the archeology of the Native Americans. We learned that using just plain “Sioux” to describe a tribe is not correct. They may be the Lakota Sioux or Dakota Sioux, but not Sioux. Sioux was a derogatory term when the tribes were prevalent. We also learned that each family's tipi had paintings on them. The paintings depicted the history and major events of that family. Maddie's activity was to draw a life story on her paper tipi. She drew about KitKat our trip to South Dakota.

Next was a drive on the Peter Norbeck Scenic By-way. Peter Norbeck was a South Dakota Governor and U.S. Senator who was a big conservationist that helped preserve the Black Hills region, including Custer State Park. The drive we took is called the Iron Mountain Road. It consists of three pig-tail bridges and three tunnels which perfectly frame Mount Rushmore in the distance. This road supposedly “couldn't be built” from an engineering perspective, but they managed to build it and it is beautiful. I drove this one and it was a fun drive. I was happy it was dry, sunny and a day with light traffic. The views of Mount Rushmore through the tunnels were very cool.

It took a little more time than I thought it would, (surprise!), but we made it back to the Visitor's Center to learn to and pan for gold. The same Ranger led this program attended by about 40 kids. She went through the different particles the kids might find and then showed them a small vial, (maybe 2 oz. of water), containing ALL the gold found in the last 8 years floating around in it. The kids were not deterred though, they all were certain they would find gold!

She led a short walk to a creek where each kid got a gold panning pan and access to dirt pulled out of the most gold producing area of the park. They each took a couple handfuls of dirt in their pan and went to the creek to make their fortunes. Alas, no gold, but a lot of quartz, granite and the exciting garnet. Garnet was the second most valuable material to be found. Maddie found a piece, pictured below and this gives you an idea of the volume available. It was a really fun activity though, I think they should have panning for the adults too.

Certain that our fortune would not be made in gold panning, we headed up to Sylvan Lake Lodge for lunch and to Sylvan Lake for a swim and a hike. John drove the oh so scenic Needles Highway to the lodge. This drive was also beautiful, but much more treacherous. Steep, curved. narrow and only the occasional striping of the center lane. John was not a happy camper, but I really enjoyed the scenery – Thanks Honey! We saw the actual “Needles” of Needles Highway. They are granite spires that stick up individually into the air. A historian originally wanted to carve the faces of wild west heroes onto the tops. This was the idea that started the ball rolling for Mount Rushmore. The Mount Rushmore sculptor, Bolgrum, said the surface wasn't fit to carve.

The Sylvan Lake Lodge was very, very nice. It was much newer than the State Game Lodge building and more lodge like. This lodge is about 20 minutes away from the Mount Rushmore entrance and I think would be an excellent place to stay for people who weren't hauling kids along with them.

The restaurant was good, we just had lunch fare before we were off to the lake. At this point, we have seen a lot of scenery, all kinds and much of it very unique, but we all agreed this was the prettiest place we had been. It's a small lake, but the lake combined with the rock formations, forests and blue sky were just stunning. Maddie did swim in the frigid water and we all hiked the loop around the lake.

Fun Fact: Sylvan Lake is the lake in National Treasure 2. The treasure hunters climb all over these rocks to find the Lost City of Gold. We looked for the City, but believe this could have been fiction.

On the hike we all did some rock climbing, but passed real climbers and saw how they did it with their equipment straight up a steep wall. They made it look so easy. We kept walking and saw a little waterfall and some cool tunnels through the formations. We made it around and Maddie swam again and got up the nerve to swim out to a rock to climb it. John and I still didn't even have the nerve to go swimming so she wins for biggest adventurer. (I'm sure you are all shocked.)

So, back to Legion Lake for a light dinner and back to the hotel to pack and get ready to begin our trek home.