Another "must see" in South Dakota was Custer State Park. We met up with Linda Clayton who we met back in 2012 when we worked for Amazon. Linda is workamping in Keystone for the summer and since she had done the same thing last year, she was our tour guide for the day. It is so great when we can meet up with workamping friends ~ we had a great day.
Custer State Park is named for George A. Custer, who led a scientific army expedition into the Black Hills in 1874. Though the expedition discovered gold, Custer seemed more interested in the area's uncommon natural beauty. Word of the discovery brought a throng of fortune seekers. Their presence eventually took a toll on the area's wildlife. In 1913, the South Dakota Legislature created a state game reserve in the southern Black Hills. Slowly, the wildlife population returned. In 1914, the park's first bison came from the Scotty Philip herd in Fort Pierre. Pronghorn, elk, bighorn sheep and mountain goats were also placed in the reserve.
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| Mount Rushmore in the background |
Wilderness is one part of the Forest System's multiple use system. It is important because it offers unmodified natural settings for conservation, preservation, recreation, biodiversity, mental and spiritual restoration and historical discovery. Wilderness areas also can be used by scientists as yardsticks to measure changes in the developed world because in wilderness, processes occur freely.
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| Just standing |
The Black Hills are an Island in the Plains. The geological history of the Black Hills is long and complex. In viewing the landscape, you would never guess the region had a history of vast oceans, uplifts and volcanoes. These natural events, combined with millions of years of erosion and weathering, sculpted the rocks into their present shapes and elevations.
I took this picture as we were driving through one of the many tunnels through the rocks. I even had to bring in the mirrors in order not to scrape them.
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| The Needles Eye |
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