Make Your Stand at Custer State Park

by Paris Permenter & John Bigley

Nature loving couples will find plenty of options near South Dakota's Custer State Park, home of the largest public buffalo herd in the western hemisphere.

You may have never visited Custer State Park. You may have never evenstepped foot in South Dakota.

But you'll probably recognize area of this 73,000 acre park, thanks to movies like How the West Was Won and Stagecoach. Both films were at least partially shot in the nation's largest state park, drawn to this location by the rolling hills, the open prairies and one of the largest buffalo herds in the world.

Today the park is a popular stop by the two million travelers who view Mount Rushmore every year. But it is also a welcome retreat for honeymooners looking for quiet campsites, miles of hiking and walking trails, scenic vistas, bountiful wildlife, and a chance to see the beauty of the Black Hills. The park is so large that you can feel like you're returning to the Wild West and imagine how the pioneers saw the land over a century ago.

Begin at the Peter Norbeck Visitors Center. Here you'll find a small museum dedicated to the history of the region, including Indian artifacts, animal bones, gold mining equipment and films on the area. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935, the center also includes an excellent bookstore where you can buy books and maps on the park, its history, and its wildlife.

Near the Visitors Center stands the Game Lodge. This historic lodge was the "summer White House" for both Calvin Coolidge and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stop in this lodge, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, for lunch and try the buffalo stew or a buffalo burger. Buffalo meat is popular because of its low fat, and it's served in most Black Hills restaurants.

For a view of the largest public buffalo herd in the western hemisphere, take a guided jeep tour. The herd was started here in the 1920's and has expanded to over 1400 head. Every October, the park welcomes visitors to watch a real buffalo round up when park staff and experienced riders herd the buffalo to corrals at the southern end of the park. After vaccinating and branding calves, some of the herd is sold off. About 800 head remain through the winter, the maximum number the park can feed through the long, snowy months. Spring calving season brings the number back up every year.

The jeep tour follows the Wildlife Loop and onto some smaller park roads. You can drive the loop. If you travel in your own vehicle, do not step out to approach a buffalo. Bulls weigh over 2000 pounds, can jump a six foot fence, and can run for 30-35 miles per hour for short distances. Although the buffalo are accustomed to vehicular traffic, they consider people on foot to be a threat and can charge unexpectedly.

The buffalo travel in herds throughout the southern 50-60 miles of the park. A female cow is always the leader of the herd, with the males either on their own or in bachelor herds. On the hip of each animal, you'll see a single digit brand identifying the year the buffalo was born.

Wild burros are also seen throughout the park. The history of these burros dates back to the 1950's, when they were used to haul tourists to the top of 7,242 foot Harney Peak. Finally, the burros became wild, and today these friendly park residents are often seen on Iron Mountain Road, panhandling for anything edible that you might have in the car.

While you're in the park, don't be surprised to also spot antelope, mule deer, mountain goat, coyote, elk, and prairie dogs. The park is so spacious that the wildlife feel right at home here. Your best chance of spotting these residents is on the Wildlife Loop Road.

This open prairie where the buffalo are found has been used frequently by Hollywood to portray the Wild West. Custer State Park's movie debut was in Stagecoach, a Western classic made in 1939. John Wayne made his first starring role in this picture that dealt with the passengers of a stagecoach as it crossed the rugged plains.

In 1963, John Wayne, joined by Debbie Reynolds and Henry Fonda, returned to Custer State Park to film How the West Was Won. A few years later, Richard Harris came to the park to star in A Man Called Horse, the story of a white hunter captured by the Sioux.

The park has plenty of scenic beauty as well, found on the Iron Mountain Road and the Needles Highway. The Needles Highways (SD 87N) is one of the most eye-catching drives in this part of the country, traveling on a winding, twisting road through a virtual forest of granite outcroppings. The "needles" are coarse grained pink granite formed 1.7 billion years ago. Because granite weathers slower than the enclosing rocks, most of the topographic features in the central Black Hills are granite.

This thread of a road snakes through the hills and into slivers of passes in the granite -- like threading a needle. The 14-mile road has several pulloffs along the way where you can capture some unusual scenery on film and watch rock climbers scale the sheer, jagged peaks. The two most popular spots are Needles Eye, a granite spire with a 50-foot opening on top, and the Cathedral Spires, a National Landmark composed of a collection of granite peaks.

Needles Highway passes Sylvan Lake, a body of water nestled in massive boulders. This is an excellent place to enjoy a picnic lunch, to do some paddleboating, or to cast a fishing line. Sylvan Lake, like the other three lakes and three major streams in the park, is stocked with rainbow and brook trout.

The second scenic route looks at both natural and man-made wonders. Iron Mountain Road (US 16A) is a 17-mile scenic drive from Custer State Park to Mount Rushmore. Allow plenty of time for this curving, winding road with its unusual "pigtail" bridges and three granite tunnels. Along the way, you'll have some unbeatable views of Mount Rushmore in the distance or framed in one of the tunnel exits. In these and all other one lane tunnels in the park, honk before entering and always doublecheck height and width requirements.

Custer State Park also boasts several historic sites, starting with French Creek. Here, in the babbling water of this shallow brook, General Custer and his men first found the gold that set off the Black Hills Gold Rush. In the park, you can visit the Gordon Stockade, a replica of a stockade used in gold rush times. Watch costumed interpreters carry on chores of the period, from starting fires with flint and steel to tanning hides to making candles and soap.

Besides gold miners, the park was also once home to South Dakota's first poet laureate, Charles Badger Clark. The author of "A Cowboy's Prayer," the poet lived for 30 years in a wood and stone four bedroom cabin called Badger Hole. Since his death in 1957, the home has been maintained just as it was during the author's lifetime. The park gives daily tours of the cabin. Afterwards, enjoy a walk on the Badger Clark Historic Trail, a one mile trail through the pines.

The park is filled with interpretive and hiking trails and natural areas, from the easy Sylvan Lake Shore Trail around Sylvan Lake to the difficult climb up Harney Peak. If you'd rather see trails from atop a horse, contact the Blue Bell Lodge. This park resort has stables offering one and two hour rides daily as well as half-day and overnight rides by arrangement.

Evening programs are also arranged by the park staff in four the campgrounds. You can learn more about outdoor cooking, wild edible plants, the park's bison herd, or cowboy poet Badger Clark through speakers and films presented nightly. The park staff also offers programs during the day, including demonstrations of panning for gold and guided walks to point out local birds and wildflowers. Be sure to pick up a schedule of programs when you enter the park.

As night falls on Custer State Park, the campers settle in and the park once again belongs to its full-time residents: the wildlife. In the moonlight, the deer gracefully walk down to French Creek for a drink of water. The coyotes sing out their baleful tune across the hills. And the huge buffalo stop their grazing, finding rest beneath the trees. This mighty symbol of the frontier rests for the night, a night that in Custer State Park could just as easily be a century ago.

For a free brochure of South Dakota campgrounds, a map, and a state tourism guide, call South Dakota Tourism, 1-800-843-1930.