Badlands, Black Hills, and Mt. Rushmore Trip Review

Day One – Lots of Wildlife

On the first day we entered through the Pinnacles Entrance (closest to Wall, SD) and headed West. We were immediately greeted by enormous Bison crossing the road, it was crazy! 

We stopped at the Hay Butte overlook where we were lucky to catch an enormous herd of pronghorn -  they were everywhere! Most of them were practically hanging off of cliffs and a lot of them had babies with them. 

Along the remainder of the road we found a few more pronghorn and bison, plus beautiful scenery. We also stopped at the Prairie Dog village, but since we have Prairie Dogs on many corners here in Colorado, that wasn’t such a big deal. (I think the Midwesterners were pretty excited about them though!) 

We ended our drive at the Sage Creek campground where we found a picnic table to enjoy our picnic lunch surrounded by roaming bison (not too close, just enough to enjoy) and prairie dogs (who were VERY close and cleaned up after we left!) There isn’t a dedicated picnic area here, but if there are any empty camp sites you can use one of the tables. We visited on a Saturday and there were several tables available. 

(This first day we spent about two hours in the park.)

Day Two – Notch Trail, Visitor’s Center, Scenic Drive

On our second day we entered the park through the Pinnacles Entrance again and headed East. This drive was spectacular, with lots of pull offs to further explore and hike. 

We stopped at the Ben Reifel Visitors Center to pick up Jr. Ranger booklets for the kids. Make sure to ask how long the rangers will be there that day, unfortunately we missed them by an hour. I’ve read that we can send them in to get the badges instead (fingers crossed on that one, or I will have very unhappy children!)

Other than the scenery, our main goal was hiking. We had planned to check out Notch Trail and Door Trail, but Notch Trail gave us everything we were looking for and ended up being our only hike!

Notch Trail

Notch Trail is an incredibly adventurous 1.5 mile round trip trail with a huge ladder near the beginning. We’d seen pictures before heading out, and had decided to make an on the spot decision whether we’d go up. And I’m proud to say that our entire group – ranging from 5 to 69 – made it up and down that ladder! 

After the ladder the hike included some scrambling and steep sections, but I didn’t think it was too bad, and the kids and grandparents seemed to all handle it fairly well. (Grandma still hasn’t decided if the hike was “fun” or not but does agree that it was an adventure). 

I’m SO glad that we did this hike. Walking among the formations was incredible, and really made you feel like you were on a different planet. The view at the end is nice, but really the scenery along the way is the highlight.

Crazy Horse

I found in my pre-trip research that many people said Crazy Horse was more impressive than Mount Rushmore. I agree that the statue is incredibly impressive, but I think most people enjoyed it more because of the museum and other learning opportunities. 

Visiting during the COVID-19 pandemic dulls that experience a bit. We did go inside the museum with masks on, which wasn’t too crowded, and also watched a dance performance outside on the patio. We didn’t linger too long though and didn’t want to take the buses to get a closer look. (You can take a private bus for $150 up to the face of the statue, which looks cool, but we didn’t want to spend the money to do that.) If you’re not interested in going into the museum, you can get some great views of the monument driving north out of Custer along 385.

We spent about two hours here.

Spearfish Canyon

I had read great things about the beauty of Spearfish Canyon and three waterfalls in the area, so we decided to spend one of our days exploring the Northern Black Hills. It was about 90 minutes from where we were staying near Custer, and it was a gorgeous drive. I will say though that if you’ve driven through Glenwood Canyon on 70, you’ve probably seen very similar scenery. And the waterfalls weren’t as spectacular as I was hoping, in fact we decided to not even stop for Bridal Veil falls because it was a little disappointing. (If you’re reading this and have not explored Colorado, it’s worth checking out!)

We did stop along the way to hike to Roughlock Falls. It was a simple two-mile (roundtrip) hike to the falls. Not much elevation gain, and a simple dirt path (I read somewhere it’s paved – definitely not!). I had hoped for some swimming and fishing in the creek along the way, and a dip in the area below the waterfall, but no luck with any of those. The top viewing area was pretty crowded because there’s a parking lot at the top of the falls, so don’t plan on spending much time there. 

There is a beautiful fishing area at the trail head, but it was deceiving! Although we could see hundreds of fish in the water just waiting, they wouldn’t take any kind of bait that my Dad dropped into the water, it was the craziest thing! They were jumping out for bugs though, so at least the kids got to see that!

On the road to check out bridal veil falls we stumbled along a gorgeous picnic area. We enjoyed our picnic lunch with beautiful views of the canyon and the creek nearby. (I think it was called Long Valley Picnic Area).

I had read about the Devil’s Bathtub along the canyon road, and it sounded fun, but I didn’t think my kids were old enough. Probably worth a stop if you have more time!

On the drive home we took the route through Deadwood and Lead, historic Wild West cities, which were interesting places to drive through. Lead is the home to the Sanford Underground Research Facility, which I didn’t know anything about, but now that I do it sounds really cool! There’s a visitor’s center there, but I’m not sure if they’re doing tours right now. 

This was about a seven hour day because of the 90 minute drive from our campsite. If we’d had fewer days in the area, I would have skipped this day!

Mount Rushmore

We planned our Mount Rushmore visit for a morning, hoping to miss crowds, but also because shadows would appear on the faces as the sun moved overhead making pictures not as spectacular. 

I was surprised to see how close the parking area was to the entrance. We were also unfortunately surprised we couldn’t access much of the park because of construction and preparations for the 4th of July celebration happening the next week. We were able to get some good pictures at the viewpoints, then hiked down to the sculptor’s studio (which wasn’t that exciting honestly, other than stumbling upon a viewpoint that was less crowded for pictures). 

The kids loved doing the Jr. Ranger booklets though. I was a little surprised they were still requiring the ranger led talk, but they didn’t ask about it at the swearing in. We did sit through one that wasn’t necessarily geared toward kids and made it through the 30 minutes, and it wasn’t overly crowded. (But my recommendation is to skip it if you’re visiting during the pandemic!)

At the end of our visit, and to celebrate our new Jr. Rangers, we had to sample Thomas Jefferson’s famous vanilla ice cream! There are several other flavors, but vanilla is the authentic stuff from TJ’s own recipe. It was enjoyed by all!

Needles Highway and Sylvan Lake

After Mount Rushmore we drove the scenic Needles Highway, which was quite a rush! There are some teeny tiny tunnels to go through, serious drop offs (which we’re a little more used to here in Colorado) and beautiful scenery.

We heard that Sylvan Lake was a must stop along the drive, so we’d brought swim suits and a picnic lunch to enjoy. It was a lot busier than I’d expected on a Wednesday, but luckily, we found a parking spot and a picnic table. The swim beach was crammed with people though, so we let the kids swim a little and then headed out. (The next day we found Legion Lake near Custer State Park, which was just as beautiful and way less crowded. Definitely drive in to see Sylvan Lake, but plan to swim at Legion Lake instead!)

Iron Mountain Road

Don’t miss this scenic drive! If you go east on Needles highway, you can pickup Iron Mountain Road north back around to Mt. Rushmore, and I highly recommend doing it that way because it was built for views of Mt. Rushmore! This road has more crazy tunnels, fantastic views of Mt. Rushmore, and also the pigtail bridges. They’re the only reason this road was able to be built, and they’re really neat to see, even the kids got how cool they were!

We did Mr. Rushmore, Needles Highway, Sylvan Lake and Iron Mountain road all in one whirlwind day that took about eight hours.

Legion Lake

Plan to spend some time here at the swimming beach. It was WAY less crowded than Sylvan Lake with just as beautiful scenery. The Legion Lake Lodge also looks like a fantastic place to stay right now because they have private cabins right along the lake!

Custer State Park Wildlife Loop

At this point in our trip I thought we’d seen plenty of wildlife, but I’m so glad we did this loop! We saw lots of bison along the way, and they congregated around the roads so they were right outside our window. One even got a little too close to us when he rubbed his head on the front of our vehicle (which was a little scary, but he finally satisfied his itch and we were able to keep moving!) We noticed that these bison were smaller though, and concluded that we had seen males in the Badlands, and mostly females with their babies in Custer State Park. Custer State Park has a HUGE herd, around 1,400. This drive took about two hours.