07.13.07
Posted in Road Trip at 5:52 pm by heidihoho7
We enjoyed sleeping in once again knowing we probably wouldn’t be climbing much that day. We got ready and got on the road. We drove by the climbing areas and all of the parking spots were blocked due to the fireworks happening that night, so no climbing at all for us. We decided to go caching instead and slowly work our way back to break up the drive. We started in Hill City but realized most were back in Custer SP. So we just started driving randomly around trying to find other ones. Eventually we ended up back in Keystone. I told him this one cache would be worth it, so we started our way up the hills. We found the old mining building but not the cache. The gps was acting up and eventually lost the signal, and on the new signal gave us totally new coordinates. So we hiked a bit farther uphill and then found it quite easily. It was placed near two mine shafts that looked a little scary but pretty darn cool. this was one of those caches that made us really appreciate the sport- it was amazing to be in a place like that with absolutely no one else around and just imagining what it would have been like. On our way out of the hills we happened upon the old 1880 train, we lucked out once again!
We found another cache on our way out of the Black Hills- just a scenic overlook and easy find. After lunch we hit a visitor center for another find where we dropped off a travel bug we had picked up in Hill City (our first ever). We continued on I-90 and eventually pointed us to an exit for 2 caches that happened to be on the same road. Both offered great views of I-90 (oddly pretty actually). We followed the gravel road up a hill to a small grouping of trees. The find was way too easy, but it did offer us entertainment. We saw a mouse and 100s of grasshoppers. They were the coolest part. They were flying everywhere and were funky cool colors – greens and oranges. It was like the parting of the sea when you walked. We headed up the road to the next one, and this one required us to drive onto a field. Even more grasshoppers! Found the cache down a hillside. As we drove out of the field a few grasshoppers tried hitching rides and be real travel bugs. 2 of them almost made it to the Badlands, it was pretty impressive considering we were going almost 80 part of the time!
We passed through the Badlands to get to the next 2 caches that were just south of the park. The first took us down an old dirt “road” where we scared some cows. I had fun mooing at them. The next one was an old abandoned town. It was pretty cool- all that was left was a sidewalk, a foundation, an old car and some random metal stuff laying around. The prairie dogs weren’t too excited about us being there and a snake was protecting some of that metal (and gave me a good fright!). Inside the cache was a pic of the old town – sounded like when the railway was pulled the town just died. Another cool cache! We didn’t have any caches left so we decided to continue the long drive home.
If you haven’t been to the black hills or the badlands, it is at least worth 1 trip- and if you are a geo-cacher there are many many for you to find out there! We will definately return for more climbing…
happy travels to everyone!
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Posted in Road Trip at 5:17 pm by heidihoho7
We left Custer and headed up 89 past our previous campsite back to the park. We headed to the switchbacks to climb Picture Rock. Bela led and I was to follow him. It was rated 5.5, but that included an evil off-width crack. I really don’t believe that it was a 5 and i admit i did a bit of aiding to get up that short first 10 feet (hey Bela told me to haha!). The rest of the climb was pretty cool with more excellent friction, although the last 20′ were runout and exposed. It was hard to commit to the last section, but well worth the view once we topped out.
The view of the valley was very impressive and we realized why the climb had gotten the name. The Totem Pole spire (5.10) was nearby as well as a few other climbs. Our climb provided an excellent vantage point to all of the Switchback climbs as well as the Ten Pins area. We found what we thought was a cache up top, but it turned out to be a climbing register from as early as the 1980s. We also spotted another one on the next spire over. I found out later that it is somewhat typical of the area to use pvc piping, tho ours was a glass jar duck-taped.
We enjoyed our time up top. The wind was blowing, but the sky was clear. I took some photos with my good camera and we waved at tourists on the road below. One of them stopped to show us the pics we took after we had rappelled down – we were pretty tiny.
We decided to head back to the Hitching Post from the day before to enjoy the climb again. We enjoyed it just as much the second time and got much better pictures. It was getting quite toasty again, so we headed back to Sylvan Lake for lunch and shopping. Afterwards, we went swimming. We braved the chilly water to warm up again on one of the rocks out in the lake. A few kids were jumping in from higher ones, but we opted to stay on firm ground and just watch the little kids kill the minnows by catching them and then holding them out of the water to show mom and dad. We sat on the beach for a bit then decided to walk around the lake.
I had brought the gps with me so we enjoyed the view – it really is a beautiful lake with rocky shores- as we hiked to a new trail. The trail led us to another climbing area and closer to the cache. We ended up having to bushwhack our way to the more remote climbing area known as “Middle Earth” where the cache was located. Found it pretty quick and ended up bushwhacking our way back to the trail and in turn back to the car.
We decided to leave the Needles behind us and head to Keystone and the Mt. Rushmore area in hopes of doing some climbs there. We thought we might stay in another hotel. We started the search once again, but this time we were a little worried. In the first hotel i overheard a man talking about the fireworks the next night and the 25,000 people expected to show up- all by 10am! Many of the rooms left were over $250, but we lucked out once again and found a cheaper room at the Travelodge – and we even had a view of Mt. Rushmore if we stood on our deck!
Now that we had our room, I convinced bela to take me on a drive down the Iron Mountain Highway. I’d read about these “pigtail bridges” where the road turns and passes over itself, like a corkscrew. The drive was really fun with windy roads, in places that even split into 1 lane roads and a few tunnels that framed Mt. Rushmore. Mostly I remember Bela driving like a maniac while i was hanging out the window trying to get cool shots. (he claims it was to lose anyone who was following too closely, i think he just liked driving fast).
We got back to town and enjoyed a mexican dinner then a dip in the pool and hot tub. Another fun-filled day!
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Posted in Road Trip at 4:46 pm by heidihoho7
We slept in a bit, but when camping that means about 7am… We wanted to get a fairly early start to beat the heat, so we started packing up. A ranger pulled up to our campsite and i instantly thought we were in trouble for not paying for camping, but he didn’t care about us. He was more interested in the other tent and its lack of campers. He’d gotten a complaint that it had been there for some time, and we were surprised it hadn’t been stolen yet. We finished packing up and went to check out Sylvan Lake to enjoy our breakfast.
The day use area of the park was very quiet that early in the morning. We made our breakfast in solitude and cleaned up a bit at the general store. Then made our way on to the Needle’s Eye Area. It was already full of tourists, but we got a good parking spot near the climb. Our first climb was a great intro to the area.
Hitching Post, a 5.6 right in the parking lot, was a really nice fun climb. I belayed from our bumper! The climb was easy, great friction, some pro, and a little exposed at the top. We got a great view from the top of the spire of all the tourists; and of course we were part of the attraction. We rapped down to the car and set it up for a top rope (”Dog and Pony show”, 5.10!). A few of the tourists were just so overwhelmed and in awe that one man actually couldn’t close his mouth. Just stared in disbelief, but we enjoyed talking to everyone… I attacked the top rope first and eventually worked my way up the evil slab section, then thanked god for that gully after that hard section! Bela agreed it was pretty darn hard.
We decided to give the tourists a break from gawking and hiked a whole 2 minutes down below to another spire called “Bell ringer” a sport 5.8. The crux was at the very beginning – the first two clips, but after that it was a great climb. Bela made it look easy, and i actually made it without crying or even sitting on the rope! The top was nice and quiet and we enjoyed being just out of reach of all the tourists. After our climbs we were a bit tired and decided to check out a new area for the next day.
We drove on and found the Switchbacks area. It had many cool spires along the road. We picked our next climb for the following day then decided to do lunch. We drove back to the Sylvan Lake Day Use area and it was complete chaos. Cars were parked all the way out of the parking lot up to the main road. We decided to risk it and see if we couldn’t find a parking spot anyways, and we totally lucked out pulling up the same time another was leaving. We made ourselves BLTwMCs and enjoyed cold tea. It was a relaxing lunch in the shade.
Until of course screaming children started to annoy us, so we decided to do our first geocache of the area. I chose the closest one and we found the right parking area. There were 2 trails, neither of which went in the right direction. So we started on one then tried the other. Then we opted to bushwhack our way in the general direction of the cache. We think there was an old trail that led there that is no longer in use or maintained. It was a pretty hike in the trees and rocks everywhere. We finally came up on the cache area and started looking. It was called Hidden Tunnel and we found that, but we didn’t find the cache right away. After 15 minutes i read the comments and finally the clue i had missed on the first couple times and it all became clear where to look. Bela had almost jumped on top of the big boulder forming the tunnel, but said to himself- it won’t be up there. Well he should have trusted his instincts and we found it right away once we jumped up.
We got back to the car and decided to slowly work our way towards Custer, where we thought we might stay for the night (rumors of rain). So I suggested we do the wildlife loop in Custer State Park and hoped we might see a few animals. Little did we know just how many we’d see!
We started the loop probably what is considered to be the end or exit of the loop. I knew there were some buffalo in the park, so we kept our eyes open as we entered. Within the first mile i spotted a herd off in the distance. The seemed to be moving pretty quickly back towards the area we had just come from. So we took a few quick pictures, then turned around to see if we couldn’t get a better vantage spot. We pulled into an employee parking lot and took some pictures of a few pronghorns in the nearby field. We then spotted the herd coming out of the forest and into the field along the road. So we took more pictures of the chuffs, then realized we might get stuck in the lot- not knowing just how many buffalo were going to be coming our way. So we drove back to the main road as they quickly came close to the road we’d been on.
It was here that we got the true experience of the wildlife loop. Everywhere we looked there were signs saying, “beware of the buffalo”, don’t feed them, don’t make friends with them.. don’t do ANYTHING with the chuffs… and people listen oh so well! Granted we were out of our cars too, but we chose not to drive up to them or anywhere near them. One couple on a motorcycle decided to risk it and drove through the herd. A majority of the herd were mama and baby buffalo- so you can imagine they were a little sensitive. so once the motorcycle revved up, they sorta freaked out. The mama started charging the motorcycle. We saw the woman frantically motioning to the driver to “GO!” and pointing at the chuff. Luckily they made it with no damage, but it was exciting none-the-less.
We enjoyed watching the thousands of buffalo go by, the line of them just never ended. We decided to continue on and drove away. We passed the original spot when we first noticed them and the line still continued far off into the forest. We didn’t see too many other animals, a few pronghorns mainly. But the scenery was just beautiful. I took a few shots of the awesome rolling hills with the blue sky and cool clouds.
The loops ends pretty close to custer, so we headed there to find a hotel. Just about all of the main hotels were booked or only had mega-suites left. I remembered seeing a small hotel that looked kind of cute when we first hit town, so we headed back to check it out. The “Chalet Motel” had just 2 rooms left, or i should say mini chalets. They were all painted white with green trim, with a ton of pretty flowers all over. The rooms were tiny, but for $60 we weren’t going to complain. The gnomes out front sealed the deal.
Once we were settled and cleaned up, we went out for dinner at a small family diner. We then passed out from a food coma and had a good night’s rest.
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