07.13.07
South Dakota Road trip! Day 2
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.