Day 105: Black Hills Classic Rides
Custer, SD to Needles Highway, Iron Mountain Road, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial
82.98 Miles | 3:12 Riding Time
It’s Wednesday, July 24, 2024, and it’s Day 105 of my cross country motorcycle trip.
Today I rode some of the classic rides in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Needles highway through Custer State Park is a winding ride among the pinnacles and rocks. If you’ve ever gone through Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont, it’s a bit like that, only about 20x longer and twistier, with lots of switchbacks, tunnels and warnings not to approach the wild bison. I’ve never seen anything like it.
After a brief stop at the visitors center, I started heading back north up the Iron Mountain Road to Mount Rushmore. Unfortunately my camera mess-up affected today’s video as well, so my pictures are limited. Iron Mountain was a wild ride with several tunnels carved out of the rock that framed Mt Rushmore perfectly as I rode through them. There were also a couple of 360+ degree corkscrew turns around wooden ramps that were just amazing.
Mount Rushmore was cool, but also the most touristy national park I’ve visited. There isn’t a whole lot to do there other than the visitors center exhibits and viewing the mountain itself, so there was just a huge mob of people. I had a similar experience at the Crazy Horse memorial. In other words, I’m glad I went to these monuments, but don’t need to go back.
The rides today were some of the highlights of my trip, and I’m so disappointed that I wasn’t able to capture great pictures and video to share. Sorry about that. I guess I’ll have to go back there sometime.
