We had a lovely day yesterday in Custer State Park. The park is the largest state park in South Dakota at 71,000 acres. It's amazingly beautiful and somewhat undescribable - open grasslands, dense ponderosa forests, and granite spires. The main attraction is an 18 mile Wildlife Loop Road that takes you through the southern portion of the park to see bison, pronghorns, elk, whitetail deer, mule deer, bighorn sheep, prairie dog towns, and coyotes. We saw all of the above with the exception of a coyote! Actually, I don't think I've ever seen so much wildlife in one place at one time.
Just getting to the park was an adventure. We drove the Iron Mountain Road which is over 20 miles of twisty, uphill road with single lane bridges and tunnels. When we finally arrived at the visitor center, an hour later, we were happy to park the car! We read the exhibits and the girls got their Jr. Ranger books and then we headed out for some exploration. First, we participated in a ranger led gold panning activity. We didn't find any gold, but did find a few agates which were very small. After lunch we hiked the "Lover's Leap" Trail, well almost. We hiked for over a mile and a half (mostly uphill - sorry mom), and came upon some hikers who had just turned around. They described, in detail, a 1500 lb. male bison who was traveling on the trail along the stream and wouldn't move! Needless to say, we walked a little farther, but then turned around. Abbey was so disappointed we didn't make it to Lover's Leap.
In the early evening we drove the wildlife loop and got up close and personal with all the animals listed above. It was amazing. Finally got back to our lodging at 7:30 p.m. Tomorrow we are off to Jewel Cave National Park and a hike around Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment