Day 10 - Custer State Park & Mt. Rushmore

We arose again before dawn, but got a decent breakfast before setting off. The sun was just peeking over the horizon as we were preparing to leave. The temp was 68 but felt warmer than that.

Day 10 Route

We were headed for 16A from Custer SD, through Custer State Park and ending in Keystone SD with a diversion along the way up to Mt Rushmore, but we had some hours of riding before we would even get to the start of that. We still had a little less than 1/2 tank  of gas so set out westbound on US 20 from Valentine, NE expecting to make Chadron NE for our fuel stop. Just 30 minutes out we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone, so what was 7:30 AM suddenly became 6:30 AM. Then we ran into a one lane road for a 15 mile road paving operation, so had to wait there for several minutes waiting our turn to go. Once again, my fuel was looking to be close, but as we made our way across it became more evident that I would easily make Chadron and so we did. We also made this a bit extended for a stop and had a cup of coffee before heading out again.

Soon, we turned northward on US 385 and then crossed the state line to South Dakota. and before long we were approaching Custer through the Wind Cave National Park, and after seeing a Bison or two, we came up om a whole herd of them - crossing the road in front of us. Well, crossing would be an optimistic term - blocking it might be more accurate!

Blocking the road!

The cars were hesitant to move so we were sitting there for some time before a large Pepsi delivery truck finally pulled out of the line behind us and came up the opposing lane and "bulled" to Bison off the road - and then we finally got moving. Larry got this picture just as the Pepsi truck was pulling up from the left.

It wasn't long after this that we pulled into Custer SD for the start of our required route. We pulled out of town and heded towards the Custer State Park entrance where we had to pay a $10 park fee. It felt like a toll to me, but given how nice the road ended up being I really can't complain much. I did get some video from my GoPro camera but it's too long to post here. We spent quite a while winding through the park, and stopped a couple of places for photos.

I could go on for some time talking about riding on these roads, but one of the highlights were the two sections of road on the way out that were complete corkscrews - the road went in complete circles, back under itself! Then there were the one lane tunnels through solid rock. Despite the auto traffic keeping us from really testing the road, I have to say I can certainly see why this road is in the Top 15 best - it definitely deserves to be there.

The required section for today's ride

One would think that the Bison the road, Mt Rushmore would be enough for the day, but not for us! We headed on north to Lead SD which sits at 5200 ft altitude. and from there we headed back down the mountain and through Spearfish Canyon. Unfortunately my GoPro ran out of battery power so I didn't get a lot of pix but I did get a couple when we stopped for photos at Bridal Falls.

And we still weren't done! After getting onto I-90 I took a 60 mile detour up to see Devil's Tower - famed from it's significance in the move Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

So, it's getting late and that about covers it for today. We are overnighting in Gillette, WY.

Stats: 457.1 miles in 8:41 moving time, 10:46 elapsed time.

Added GPS Track for the day: