These are some photos of the Black Hills of South Dakota from a hike we took in 2007.
This ominous spire of granite that sort of has a face and funny hat stands at the entrance to a pair of small grassy areas between granite fins. I called it Guardian of the Valleys. It is a cool area that I found one day when I was exploring alone.
This rock spire is on the other side of the grassy valleys and I called it Totum Head.
I came back later with DJ and we found a needle eye formation that he had hiked to before that is in this same area. This is a hike in only compared to the more famous Needle’s Eye on Custer State Park;s Needles Highway.
We took a hike from Horsethief Lake near Mount Rushmore to Bismark Lake near Custer. This was taken along the way. We spent very little time on trails and relied on DJ’s internal compass. Except for one section where he let me lead, we pretty much followed a straight line to our destination. With me in the lead, we seemed to wander aimlessly and when the sun came out from behind the cloud it was in the south and not the west as it had been. I let DJ take over and he got us back on track. I had only taken us a mile out of our way.
