We were expecting reasonable weather today, but while it started sunny it was also quite cold, so we didn't want to walk around outside much.
Just a few miles north of Custer is Crazy Horse Mountain Sculpture. After stopping at the Bakery in Custer we drove up and entered the quite large park. It is a very ambitious project, several hundred acres of land, with plans for a university and medical college as well as a cultural center and museum. If that sounds ambitious then you should see the centrepiece, which is the Crazy Horse Mountain Sculpture. This was started in 1948 when the then chief of the Lakota (formally known as Sioux) tribe engaged sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to produce a monument to the Indian, similar to the monument at Mt Rushmore. However this monument would sculpt the whole mountain. Ending up with a statue several hundred feet high, depicting Crazy Horse on a horse pointing towards the hills, showing where his lands are. (Crazy Horse was a chief in the 1870's, stabbed to death by a soldier, with a bayonet, in Fort Robinson, NE in 1877). So far, after more than 50 years, half of the head and the top of the arm have been completed. So it is a work where the journey is as important as the destination. We toured the visitor center and stood and looked at this marvel in rock, which dwarf's it's counterpart of Mt Rushmore (which however is finished).
This mountain sculpture is not just a memorial to Crazy Horse, it is a rallying cry to the Indian Nations and though it is not said, it a monument to the wrongs that have been done to them, as Crazy Horse was the focal point of the Indian resistance to White America in the Nineteenth Century. We were quite impressed.
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After visiting Crazy Horse we took advantage of the Custer SP Open Day to take a ride round the Northern section of the park, a section called The Needles.This is a road which winds along the top of a series of granite mountain tops and bluffs, quite reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Mountain Highway in NC and Virginia. It is only a few miles long, but very dramatic, partly due to the views, partly due to the very narrow road and its tunnels, mostly due to the needle like formations of the the granite rock. These needles soar dramatically into the air sometimes over a hundred feet and are very impressive. The tunnels are very narrow, the first one is only about a foot wider than our Chevy, but didn't seem that wide at all.
After the needles the road twisted and turned downhill alongside a small mountain stream, which was a very pretty route to follow. The road eventually comes out near to the Legion Lake Lodge, giving us a short ride back home.
Another super day in the Black Hills.
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its been great seeing these places we had forgotten we had visited - thank you
ReplyDeleteThe only reason we visit them is to see if we can see the signs you have left behind. I keep looking for bent reeds, broken twigs,footprints, tyre tracks and graffiti.
DeleteThe only reason we visit them is to see if we can see the signs you have left behind. I keep looking for bent reeds, broken twigs,footprints, tyre tracks and graffiti.
Deletehas work stopped on Crazy Horse? it doesn't look any further forward since we saw it in 2009 I think
ReplyDeleteI think you could blow away a lot of the mountain before you would notice the difference. Actually I did see a statement somewhere that they are working on the back of the hand at the moment.
ReplyDelete