"Let's Take a Little Loop Hike to the Highest Point in South Dakota!" he said.

Of all the nice hikes in Custer State Park, The one epic trail that we read the most about was the one to Black Elk Peak. But it breaks Denisa's hiking rules because it exceeds her maximums for length AND elevation gain. But Mark came up with a loop hike that would get us to several neat places all in one day. "Let's take a little loop hike to the highest point in South Dakota!" he said. Mark knows that Denisa is a sucker for a good loop hike, so there we were on the trail at 7:30 a.m. before the trail head parking lot got full.

We started the hike at an elevation of 6,162 feet, so we had to hike up almost 1,000 feet to get to our first destination. It was an uphill hike, but that means that we quickly got to some great views over the granite spires that decorate the mountain tops here in Custer State Park.

We were heading to the very tallest spire in the state on top of Black Elk Peak. It was looking quite small this morning, as Denisa pointed to it far away in the clouds. We could always recognize this peak because it had a square lookout tower built on top.

We actually took this hike 13 years ago when we visited South Dakota on a summer trip. But back then we were hiking towards Harney Peak. The name was changed to Black Elk Peak to satisfy the Native Americans of South Dakota, but it's hard for us to get used to the name change. We took a zoomed-in picture of our destination, and then it was time to get moving again.

The wildflowers were coming into their prime in Custer State Park. 

In order to forget that we are always going uphill, Denisa stopped to catch her breath and take flower pictures.

Actually, this was a well-done trail. It was smooth with a gentle slope, and had some great views of the surrounding rock spires. Even though we were up early this morning, we had plenty of company on the trail to trade picture-taking duties.

The last push to the summit was very steep and rocky, and then steps were provided at the very top. We had made it 3.7 miles so far on this little loop hike.

We were so high that we had hiked into the clouds. As we approached the summit we realized that our views from the top weren't going to be the best.

Instead of a blue-sky day, we had white skies from the rock look-out tower at the top. We made it to the top before 10:00, and we got a picture of Mark standing on the tallest peak east of the Rockies. By Colorado standards this wouldn't even show up as a mountain, but we were standing at the highest point in South Dakota at 7,244 feet in elevation.

This high peak is a sacred place for the Native Americans, who bring colorful prayer cloths to tie on the trees at the top.

Actually, Denisa was the tallest person in South Dakota that day because she climbed to the very top of the lookout tower.

We decided to spend some extra time at the top, hoping that the clouds would break up and show us some blue skies.

It also seemed like a good time to have a snack and rest. That's Denisa in the bottom right hand corner of the picture below--resting in the shadow of Black Elk Peak.

Meanwhile, Mark was scrambling around on the rocks. This was a very popular hike, but the peak was big enough to share the space with lots of people.

Looking to the east, we can see the back side of Mount Rushmore. It's a cloudy view, but the squared off peak on the right edge is the back side of the mountain where the four presidents were carved into the front side.

We hung around Black Elk Peak for around an hour, and we finally got to see some blue skies peaking through the clouds.

It was cool and windy at the highest point in South Dakota. But by the time we left, we had some blue skies and we had to take off our jackets.

While we had made it to our most important destination, Mark had more planned for this loop hike. He was pointing to our next destination. "Let's take a little loop hike that includes Little Devil's Tower!" he said. It was hard to see in the clouds far away, but it was the rounded spire that looks like a smaller version of Devil's Tower (that we'll be visiting later this summer in Wyoming).

We went down-hill for a while, and Denisa kept herself distracted for the next 3.3 miles. She found more interesting wildflowers to photograph.

As we got closer to Little Devil's Tower, we also got closer to the granite spires surrounding it.

They look big from a distance, and these spires look even bigger when we stood right next to one.

The most photographed spires are a group known as the Cathedral Spires. From here we watched as four different rock climbers made their way to the top and stood on the pinnacle. They were so small that you can't even see them in the picture below.

We had to do our own version of rock climbing when we arrived at the base of Little Devil's Tower. Mark went first, to try out the rock scrambling that we must do to get to the top.

Then he looked down, and tried to decide how we were going to get Denisa up there too. It would take some climbing with her knees up to her chin, but she finally made it all the way up that crevice too.

It was about 1:00 when we made it to our second summit of the day. Sitting on top of Little Devil's Tower, the Cathedral Spires no longer looked so big.

This climb added another 800 feet in elevation gain to our "little loop hike." But it gave us some great views from the top.

We've definitely wandered into more of God's wonders today!

We found the medallion for the hiking challenge completion. We're not sure if this was one of the medallions included in the 2023 challenge or not. But we were thinking that last scramble to the top would make it more challenging than most hikes.

While Black Elk Peak was busy, this was a more serene summit. We did have one other group make it to the top while we were there. Even though you can't see them, this was a picture of Denisa taking their picture from the top.

They reciprocated by taking a picture of us in the same spot. What a view!

We liked that view so much that we sat right down in that little notch to eat our picnic lunch. To be honest, it wasn't the most comfortable spot, but the views past our hiking boots were magnificent.

We remembered our vacation trip to the Black Hills back in 2010, looking out over the hills to see large patches of dead trees. It was one of our first exposures to the destruction of the pine beetle. We've seen it over and over in our travels, where this tiny beetle can kill an entire forest. We were pleasantly surprised at how good the forest had recovered 13 years later. A sign along our trail explained how South Dakota handled the destruction of 18,500 ponderosa pines in 2009-10. They chose to cut down infected trees, and used helicopters to fly those trees to a central location where they could still be made into wood products. Removing the trees with the larvae inside interrupted the life cycle of the beetle and protected the surrounding trees. It also got rid of the standing dead wood to reduce the intensity of wild fires. The helicopter logging was expensive, but it saved this forest and made use of the infected trees. Good job South Dakota!

It was a long walk back to the pickup on this "little loop hike." But what could be better than two perfect wild irises to make Denisa forget how tired she was?

Even better would be a couple wild irises with a granite spire behind them?!?

As tired as we were after that hike, we recognized that our early-morning parking place was a rare commodity. The trail head for the Black Elk Peak hike is next to Sylvan Lake. Even though we were tired, this was a great time to go for a kayak trip around the lake while we had that parking place.

So we rested for a while in the shade, and then mustered up enough energy to inflate the kayak and carried it to the water's edge. We were on the water by 3:15. This was a full day!

Now we used our arms instead of our tired legs to propel ourselves around this lovely lake. We took a picture of another kayak to give some sense of scale to just how big those boulders on the edge of lake were.

The park film calls Sylvan Lake "the crown jewel of the state park," and we just had to take this opportunity to kayak it. We called it another of God's wonders. We still remembered it fondly from our kayak trip here thirteen years ago, when we were newbies with our new inflatable kayak.

We were tired by the time we put up the kayak and drove back to the motor home. We hiked 9.2 miles with a total elevation gain of 1,834 feet. Both of those numbers are well over the maximums that Denisa was comfortable with! Then we kayaked another mile. All of that started with "Let's take a little loop hike to the highest point in South Dakota!" he said.

One bad day of rain, and then one good day at Custer State Park

We knew that we had lots of rain last night when hundreds of tiny frogs showed up in our campground! It rained all night and kept on raining through the next morning. In a place that gets around 16 inches of rain per year, they got 2.5 inches in the last 24 hours that we were camped outside of Badlands National Park. Smaller than a dime, these tiny frogs were jumping everywhere! 

If you remember, we still had one more night to find a camping spot since the national park cancelled our three-night reservation. We had planned to boondock the third night at the Baja OHV staging area in the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. But when we drove by in the rain around noon, that parking area looked more like a lake. A 26,000 pound motor home would immediately be stuck in the mud if we pulled in there. So we continued down the highway in the rain.

We didn't go far, because a temporary stop light just turned to red as we approached. We sat for ten minutes before it turned green.

Then we were allowed to proceed through the muddy single lane track in the rain. This was going to be an interesting drive!

It rained the entire 1.5-hour drive. The road signs warned about the rough road, and Highway 44 was like one long bad roller coaster ride in a motor home in the rain.

We haven't seen this since the frost heaves on the highways in Alaska. Some of the bumps in the highway were so big they marked them with a flag and cone. If you hit these bumps at normal speed, your wheels would fly into the air. Because our national park campground reservation was canceled, we were forced to travel on such a rainy day.

We were glad that we had found an open spot at the Southern Hills Campground in Hermosa, South Dakota. A new campground with great facilities, they welcomed us for a one-night stay. We didn't find anything to do in Hermosa in the rain, but the three huge busts of three presidents out front caused us to do an internet search. We found that inspired by the success of Mount Rushmore, a sculptor designed a President's Park in Lead, South Dakota. It featured over-sized presidential statues along a winding path in the woods. In fact, this guy opened two more presidential parks in Virginia and Texas. But the public wasn't so excited about his project, and tourist attendance was underwhelming. When all three parks went bankrupt, the presidents found random homes. Three of them landed in the tiny town of Hermosa, South Dakota, in front of our rainy-day campground.

After going to church the next morning, we had blue skies for the 20-mile trip to our campground inside Custer State Park. It was a slow 20 miles because the road winds through the ponderosa pines.

We got this five-day campground reservation in this popular state park only because we booked it months ago when someone had just cancelled their reservation. They only have electricity hook-ups here, but we came with a full water tank and empty gray and black tanks. Plus, they have very nice showers to help us stretch our water supply further.

Because we arrived shortly after noon, we had time to start exploring Custer State Park right away. We stopped at the visitor center for advice, and took off on our first hike here--the 4.5-mile Lover's Leap Loop.

A fire in 2000 left some burn scars throughout the park. We hiked through a section of scorched pines at the beginning of the hike.

After a steep incline, we leveled off for our first view over the Black Hills. This entire southwest corner of South Dakota is known as the Black Hills because the thick covering of ponderosa pines made them appear black to the first explorers that were naming things.

Every year Custer State Park sets up a Trail Challenge that runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. They have a different group of trails specified each year. One of the eight trails in the 2023 trail challenge is the Lover's Leap Trail.

To earn the official hiking pin for 2023, a hiker must make a rubbing with pencil and paper of the medallion located in the middle of each of those eight trails. We found the Lovers Leap medallion and took a picture because we didn't have a pencil and paper. We won't be around long enough to make the eight hikes, but this sounds like such a fun way to get people out on the trails!

Besides the hearts on that medallion, Denisa found another heart hanging from a low tree branch near that viewpoint. Its paper tag announced that it needed a home. When we checked out the website on the tag, we found that a group of sisters decided to leave quilted hearts for people to find in public places. Finders of the hearts can log where the heart was placed and add a picture. Denisa thinks she needs to get her group of sisters to make quilted hearts. What a fun hike this has been!

We finally got to the highest view point, with its rocky ledge high above the valley below. We have wandered into another of God's wonders today!

We're guessing that this is the place where lovers leap. Don't do it, Mark!

Instead, Mark sat and pondered the words of the Custer State Park poet who once lived here. If you can't read the sign easily, it says, "Custer State Park is a place where one can still be an unworried and unregimented individual and wear any old clothes and sit on a log and get their sanity back again." So Mark was wearing his old clothes, sitting on a log, and retrieving his sanity after that drive in the rain yesterday.

In the meantime, Denisa was wearing her old clothes and marching down the trail to find the first red columbine of the summer. Her sanity can no longer be found.

Mark carried our water shoes on his backpack for this hike because the ranger warned us of the high water creek crossings. He told us that we should expect to get our feet wet during the second half of the loop. But we were glad to find that planks had been laid over each of the many water crossings, and we didn't even need to change our shoes.

It was such a beautiful evening in such a beautiful place! The facilities are first-rate here at Custer State Park, including five lakes and nine campgrounds. This state park is nicer and bigger than some of the national parks we have visited, and we're glad to be here.

It was so nice outside that we decided to drive the 18-mile wildlife loop to see if any animals were enjoying the weather. We also liked that the visitor centers in this state park are open until 8:00 p.m. to answer visitors' questions. The brand new Bison Center on the wildlife loop was open until 8:00, so we stopped in to learn all about the 1,400 animals in the state park's bison herd.

One of the volunteers at the Bison Center suggested that we leave the paved road and travel one of the gravel roads that cut through the center of this section of the park. He added that if we went that direction we "should have bison so close that they could lick your pickup." We saw the big herd scattered over the green hills in the distance.

He was right! Once we got further down that gravel road, the bison could have licked our pickup if they weren't so intent on grazing that lush green grass.

A few other people were on this sunset wildlife drive, and we had to stop to let the bison walk across the road between us.

It was a delight to be in the middle of this huge herd of bison. At one time American bison were hunted almost to extinction. But programs like the one at Custer State Park have brought them back to a healthy number once again.

From where we were sitting in the pickup, we could see over a thousand bison. The numbers in the herd have swelled because more than 300 new calves have been born this spring.

These animals were so close to us that a zoom lens wasn't necessary. In fact, all of these pictures were taken with our cell phones.

We could have sat watching these beasts of the prairie for hours. Some babies were suckling, some of the young bulls were butting heads, and older calves were kicking up their hooves and playing. But the sun is going down, and we're a long ways on very slow gravel roads from home.

So we left the herd and headed towards the motor home. After one bad day of rain in transit, we certainly had a delightfully good first day at Custer State Park!