Continued from the previous page.

PRONGHORNS

I saw lots of handsome pronghorns all along the Wildlife Loop and in other areas of the two parks today. Similar in size and looks to antelope, pronghorns are the fastest land animals on earth. Several years ago Jim and I witnessed two young pronghorns chasing each other in play on the Wildlife Loop and it was a sight to behold.

Some of the pronghorns I saw today were alone (usually males), others were paired up (couples or moms with offspring), and others were in groups of up to five or six:

Two pronghorns --  and a prairie dog in the foreground

What a handsome animal!

I drove slowly along the park roads today but had to slow down even more several times for pronghorns grazing by the side of the road or crossing it:

 

 

This group of four pronghorn scattered on both sides of the road when I approached as I was getting near the north end of the Wildlife Loop:

MORE BISON ON THE WILDLIFE LOOP

Hundreds of bison are still grazing within a mile or two of the corrals where they were herded last Monday in the popular annual public Buffalo Roundup.

I showed one group near the top of this page. Here's another large group:

Beautiful rangeland in Custer SP just north of the corrals; all the tiny dots in the distance are bison.

It didn’t look like most of them were fenced in. I guess it takes them a few days to realize they're free to roam a larger area of the park.

Here are two photos from the corrals:

 

Some of the bison are sold after the roundup to keep the herd at a manageable 1,500 head, the level that rangers have determined the prairie lands within the park can sustain. These animals that are still contained in the corrals may be awaiting the auction in November.

If you're ever in the Black Hills area at roundup time I highly recommend attending the annual buffalo roundup. It's a unique event attended by about 14,000 people. I went to it last year and loved it.

How many people ever get to see a thundering herd of over 1,000 bison rounded up by cowboys?

FRIENDLY BURRO 

Part way through the Wildlife Loop I approached a car with two women who were stopped to talk to a friendly burro at their window:

When he saw me stop he came over to my window, wanting a snack and/or attention (probably just the snack!).

I didn’t give him anything to eat -- the park discourages that for good reason but enough people must feed the burros that they stay close to the road to beg from visitors.

I rolled down my window and Cody’s. To my surprise the burro spent more time nose-to-nose with Cody than begging food from me. They were quite curious about each other and both were gentle.

The burros in Custer State Park are not native to the Black Hills. They are descendents of the herd that once hauled visitors to the summit of Harney Peak. The rides were discontinued years ago and the burros were released into the park, where they have become a popular tourist attraction.

Workin' the crowd

The first time that Jim and I visited Custer State Park several burros came up to our truck. We didn’t see any last year, and this was the only one I saw today.

The park has the usual disclaimers about getting too close to the burros and other wildlife but few of us can resist these mostly-tame burros. They're more similar to the mostly-tame "wild" horses that roam Cumberland Island, Georgia or Grayson Highlands on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia than they are to the bison or elk in the park.

And even those bison at Custer State Park are more used to humans than the free-roaming bison of the 1800s. That doesn't mean I'd ever get real close to one unless it's fenced. They are faster than they look.

I wanted to look inside the wildlife station visitor center (shown above) on the Wildlife Loop today but it was closed.

IRON MOUNTAIN ROAD  

I continued driving north on the Wildlife Loop until I reached US 16A. It goes east and west through the northern part of the park. I went east to the entrance station on that side of the park, then north on US 16A, which is also called Iron Mountain Road:

As soon as I got on US 16A I started seeing wild turkeys all over the place. It was apparently suppertime for them:

Here's my route marked with red arrows out the northeast part of the park and up to the town of Keystone:

Custer State Park is in green. The Black Hills National Forest is pink. Mount Rushmore is at the top of this map section and the town of Keystone is just off the map to the right of it.

Driving on Iron Mountain Road is an experience that's even better than driving the Needles Highway on the northwest side of the park. Both have lots of switchbacks and several very narrow tunnels but Iron Mountain Road also has two "pigtail" bridges and views of the presidential sculptures at Mount Rushmore framed by two of the tunnels.

A scenic drive doesn't get much better than that!

You can see where the tunnels are located on the map above. Here are the three tunnels as I went north on Iron Mountain Road:

 

 

I've gotten good pictures of the monument "framed" by the tunnels before but not today.

The lighting wasn't right. By the time I got there it was 5 PM and the sun was behind the trees. I wasn’t able to get very good photos of the sculptures, fall leaf color, etc.

View of the sculptures from Iron Mountain Road; I just highlighted
the best part of it instead of messing with PhotoShop for ten minutes.

I did get photos from our GPS of the curvy road and the pigtail bridges:

 

 

 

The loop below the arrow denotes a "pigtail."

From Keystone I retraced my route home on US 16, around the southeast side of Rapid City, and east to our campground at Ellsworth AFB. It was a long day but Cody and I had lots of fun down in the Hills.

Jim wasn't interested in going back down there again today. While I was gone he rode his bike and did a variety of things on the computer and camper in preparation for our trip back to Virginia in a couple of days.

Next entry:  other activities we've enjoyed in the Rapid City area and our travel plans for later this week

Happy trails,

Sue
"Runtrails & Company" - Sue Norwood, Jim O'Neil, and Cody the ultra Lab

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© 2012 Sue Norwood and Jim O'Neil