June 8th - Crazy Horse, South Dakota

The day dawned cold but clear, and we loaded up on carbohydrates with a big pancake breakfast before heading off to the Crazy Horse Monument for the Volksmarch. There were thousands of people there when we arrived about nine, and I was surprised to see men on horseback guiding traffic. Being mounted makes these guys much easier to spot and drive around, but I was amazed that the horses would stand stock still even when a car drove right up to their hooves. I later found out that four to six thousand people walk up to the monument both Saturday and Sunday—we were number five thousand odd for this year’s walk.

So, with literally a cast of thousands, we signed up for the walk plus the medal and started our trek up the mountain. The first part of the trail was thru a forest and we went up and up with an occasional level or downhill section just to give us a break. The forest was beautiful and despite having rained most of the previous day there was very little mud—we had no problems with our footing. The forest usually blocked our view of the monument but we occasionally had tantalizing views of it.

We finally reached the foot of the bluff where the carving started and then wound our way around the base. Our course was still generally upward and we were huffing and puffing along. The woods gradually opened up at that point and we had a nice set of views of the sculpture from different angles as we circled the base.

The final upward leg used the gravel/dirt road that leads to the face of the sculpture. The high point of the walk, both literally as well as figuratively, was walking out along the extended arm of Crazy Horse just below the face. Besides having “up close and personal” views of the face, we had an almost 360-degree panoramic view of the Black Hills scenery. The air was so clear that we had horizon-to-horizon views that were clear, bright, and beautiful.

Since we had reached the high point, we both felt justified in donning the medal for the Crazy Horse Volksmarch as we walked the final leg down—the medal had a Crazy Horse theme and Native-American symbols. On the way down we took the short detour to look at the hole under the arm, which will someday be enlarged to be the gap between Crazy Horse’s arm and the neck of the horse he is riding. The rest of the return route to the finish point was a nice gradual downhill following the construction road back to the Visitor Center area.

Being curious about the monument we spent the next couple of hours in the museum and workshop of the sculptor. The Visitor Center had a short film about the monument and the sculptor that was very interesting. This guy was even more eccentric than Borglum! The first few years he built himself a log cabin to live in at the base of the monument and did all the drilling and blasting all by himself—the only equipment was a 20-year old air compressor. It was clear that he was an absolute demon for work and interestingly enough he successfully passed that on to his family. They showed scenes where his young children were helping him load dynamite into blasting holes and I just can’t imagine many parents doing that.

The sculptor died in the early 80s but his widow and seven of his ten (!) children are carrying on the project. They apparently have made the completion of the monument a family mission, which is good because the construction has already been going on over 50 years and completion may well take a few more decades. Partly the long time span is due to the fact that unlike Mount Rushmore the work on this monument is completely based on entrance fees and donations—no state or federal support. On a terrace overlooking the monument are the scale models for how it will look when it is finished. It is already an imposing piece of work, much larger than Mount Rushmore, and when completed it will be absolutely fantastic.

Also on display were the family furnishings from the years when he was raising this family and working on the monument. These were interesting in part because they were far nicer than I had imagined, including a harp and even a baby grand piano! I imagine his wife had something to do with that—the film made it clear that she was one determined lady!

The sculptor’s old studio area was just chock-a-block with sculptures that to my unskilled eye looked finished. However, sitting in the middle of this room was a full-sized and apparently authentic stage coach, and I really wondered why in the world he would have something that large and ungainly sitting in the middle of his work space—I mean, it takes up an enormous amount of room. If you visit and have a moment with one of the family members who runs the place, you might ask why he had that thing, and if you do, let me know. One piece I liked was a horse head sculpted from the stump of a tree, according to the plaque underneath. The sculpture by itself wasn’t so amazing but the fact that he did it in nine days from start to finish was, for me, quite impressive.

The plans for the future of the monument include completing the sculpture, of course, but much more development. I was surprised to see the plans for an airport right next to the museum, but that might be one way to improve access to the site—the highways approaching the site are quite twisty and rather slow going at places. One other piece of that development would be a college campus devoted to Native American cultural issues and that, for me, would be far more important than the monument itself.

After the studio we went into the Native American cultural center, where several artisans had set up stands. Monika was intrigued by and bought a flute that was carved like an eagle. The finger stops were indicated with small stones that made it easy to play. This center also had several jewelry stands and Monika finally broke down and bought a beautiful necklace with a turtle as the main pendant.

Hunger finally drove us from the museum back out to the tents in the parking lot where I had a barbecue and Monika had a hamburger before we returned to the truck to drive back to camp. For the drive back we had decided to circle around to the north and drive the “Needles Highway” that was supposed to have some spectacular scenery. The Needles Highway itself was a really narrow, twisty one-lane road with 2-way traffic and absolutely no shoulders in many places. This made for some very interesting, not to say exciting, driving when you are coming around a blind curve with no shoulders and meet a car or motorcycle coming the other way in the middle of the road! We all were driving slowly and behaving ourselves, however, so it all went without incident, even when a tour bus had to negotiate a tunnel only 10 feet high and 8 feet, 4 inches wide! He didn’t have more than an inch or two on each side of his mirrors, and we all applauded when he finally made it thru to our side.

But the scenery was as spectacular as we had heard from others. Columns and stacks of rock make really fantastic shapes along the way. There is even a “needle” structure that has a long hole in a tall column of rock, and it really does look like the eye of a very huge rocky needle. Amazing. Other columns lined up to look like the columns of a temple or cathedral, and still other pieces resembled a human face enough that I could see how folks first got the idea to carve a mountain into human faces.

Toward the end of the Needles Highway we saw the car ahead of us stopped dead on the road, and that is often a good clue in this area that picturesque wildlife are nearby. So we looked around and sure enough spotted two bighorn sheep laying down right off the shoulder of the road. They weren’t begging or anything, just apparently taking a short afternoon lie-down. Maybe if we hadn’t all been stopping to take pictures they could have had a nap! I have never been that close to a bighorn sheep ever before—in the past I have counted myself lucky to spot them across a valley—so I was thrilled. Monika got a nice portrait shot of one that was turned in our direction so we were very happy as we completed the drive back to camp. We spent the next few hours writing (Bob) and packing and preparing for the next leg of our trip (Monika). Since the computer battery finally gave out, I parked myself outside the bathroom and used an external outlet while writing, which lacked the ordinary ambience of our tent but certainly sufficed.

At sunset we walked across the road to Legion Lake and took a circuit hike around it. As the dusk deepened we snapped pictures from different points of view and had a grand old time. The reflections in the lake were beautiful and it was a nice way to end to our days in the Black Hills.