Day 20: Harney Peak

Oh boy, Harney Peak………it’s the highest peak between the Swiss Alps and the Rocky Mountains at 7,200 feet.  The hike to the top starts at about 6,000 feet and is about 5 hours long.  It’s rough going at times, but totally worth it.  Here, I’ll let the pictures do the talking……

It was a STEEP climb.

 We're getting pretty good with the self-timer.

See that red area, below the big rock?  That looks like leaves changing color?  Well, it's actually dead leaves due to the pine beetle.  Which has killed millions of trees.

 They have to cut down all the infected trees to try to stop the infestation.  It's not working very well.

Yeah, you see that rectangle thing in the middle of the picture?  THAT'S where we're going!!!

 Cathedral Spires.  We passed by but didn't detour.

Needles!!!

OMG, are we almost there?? 

No, we're not.   COME ON!!!

 Hey!  Since I'm already so far behind, let me take a picture!!

Pretty.

 Cute boys.

Look girls!!  I'm wearing my hiking boots! 

We made it!!

Kipper's cooling off in a spring that was dammed up to provide a water supply for the men who were stationed at Harney Peak to watch for fires in the Black Hills back in the old days.

Wow

On the way back down....I'm STILL lagging behind.

Sylvan Lake at the end of our hike.  Beautiful and cold.

Just what we needed.

That's one tired pooch.

Dinner that night was the best ever.  Burgers with Jim Wilson's homemade bar-b-q sauce, lovingly packed up in an OJ bottle.  More Jimmy Sauce?  Yes, please.



Days 18 - 19: Four Dudes and Some Needles

Our very first stop in South Dakota was the RV place, to get a new vent cover to replace the one that blew off the day before.  We drove through the Black Hills National Forest (our original destination) to get to Rapid City.  However annoying it is to retrace your steps, we had to do it. 

We were in the car for a long time.

Kipper's bored.

After we got Le Tigre all patched up, we found a cute campsite in the middle of the Black Hills called…..

We found out later that this is NOT the Horsethief Lake campground we were looking for, but it worked out all the same.

We exercised Kipper and went to bed.

The next day, we went to Mount Rushmore.  Our first view was just of Washington's profile through the trees.....

.....and we saw our first "real" wildlife (besides racoons, squirrels, and deer) of the trip!

Rock star

tee hee

Two profiles of granite

Then we got to the real deal.

(obligatory self-portrait)

The history of the place is pretty cool.  I didn’t know that 90% of the sculpture was done with DYNAMITE!!!  And that the monument was actually supposed to be busts of the four presidents down to the WAIST!!

Mock up of original idea.  This is about 20 ft tall.  Every inch of this equals a foot on the mountain.

 Look at Washington.  They started to blast out a coat on him – you can see his lapels.

They had to stop working on the monument when WWII started.  Check out the rough area to the right of Lincoln’s head and around his chin.

If you look closely, you can see that there are rough areas around the whole thing.  So basically, one of the most recognized symbols of America is unfinished!  It's still incredible.

BTW, this is the Horsethief Lake we were originally looking for. 

It has shimmery sand from all the granite in the area.

 It’s super close to Mount Rushmore, so we went there afterwards and gave Kipper some exercise. 

That evening, on the way back to Mount Rushmore for their nightly lighting of the monument, we drove Needles Highway, a winding road through a part of the Black Hills with weird stone formations that somebody thought looked like needles.   

There were tunnels….

…..and needles……….

…..and vistas……..

…….and a little part of the highway called a pigtail, because it loops back in on itself.  I don’t have a picture of that but it looks like a roller coaster.   Funny road.

The lighting ceremony was cool.  It made me feel all patriotic.

All those people on stage are serving or have served in the US Armed Forces. 

 That's a lot of folks.

P.S.  The other monument around here is Crazy Horse.  We saw it from the road and it's HUGE....so is admission!  The entire Mount Rushmore carving could fit on Crazy Horse's outstretched arm....

Days 16 & 17: Out of Colorado….in to Wyoming

We left Jim and Gemma’s (sad face) to get back to the serious business of camping.  On our way, we found this awesome Tiger. 

 I envy their storage space.

We headed north/northwest towards Medicine Bow National Forest. After passing through a cute town on the edge of the forest……

Centennial, WY

……we entered Medicine Bow and proceeded to have our breath taken away at every turn.

Yep, that's snow!

Not this particular one but some of the small lakes were still frozen!

Kipper's unfazed by the frigid tempature.

After driving the Medicine Bow scenic route (and boy, was it scenic!!), we camped at South Brush Creek…..

(This is the "creek," although it was more like a raging river from all the snow melt.)

(We were the only campers in sight!)

………and made a delicious dinner of smoked salmon we had bought at the Farmer’s Market in Longmont, CO.

yum

After dinner, Greg built a fire and we hung out, relaxing while the sun went down….

…… enjoying the peace and quiet. Our part of the campsite was completely deserted, until the Canterburys drove in after dark. They were running late after spending too much time in the beauty of the Teton National Forest and asked us if they could tent next to us. If you’ve ever had to make camp after dark, you know how hard and sometimes scary it is (because it is DARK!!!!), so of course we said yes and shared our fire with them. In return, they gave us some spaghetti noodles and pasta sauce! Thanks Bethany and Brad!!!

The next day, we drove to Douglas, Wyoming. Nothing happened, except our skylight cover blew off  somewhere along the way. Once we were camped, we had to cover the entire Tiger with a tarp b/c it looked like rain. Fortunately, it didn’t rain, but we stayed at a KOA with Wi-Fi so we were able to look up camper repair places near-by. But that’s a different day………

 This is the KOA were we stayed.  Cute enough, until we had to get out of the pool because of.....well, I'll let this clip show you what happened.....

WHAT HAPPENED???