So do I. The four things are the Black Hills National Forest, Mt Rushmore National Memorial, Badlands National Park and Buffalo Gap National Grassland - all in the far south-west corner of the state.
SD got a good bucketful of snow from the big snowstorm that swept through the Northwest and Upper Plain States last week, the high elevations in the hills getting over a foot. On Saturday, I drove past Rushmore on my way to the Willow Creek Trailhead, and hiked to the summit of Harney Peak, the highest point in the Black Hills, as well as in the state of SD, at 7240ft.
There are two trails to the top: the popular 3.5 mile northern approach with about 1000ft of elevation gain, and the completely neglected (and therefore much nicer, if you like the solitude) southern approach, which is about 5.5 miles long (one-way), and gains about 2500ft.
I took the path less traveled - turns out no one had traveled it since the snow had come, so I was breaking trail all the way up, which made it a better workout than the numbers would suggest. Saw some very neat rock formations along the way.
The summit has a sweet little stone tower on it, and I snuck inside, away from the winds, to eat my lunch, snap some pictures and head back down.
During my hike up, I had seen plenty of animal tracks (mostly deer and rabbit, no human tracks though), so it was nice to finally spot one of the culprits on the way down (yes, I had a late start, so it was dark when I got back to the car).
On Sunday, I hiked the Badlands, which turned out to be trickier in spots than I'd imagined. What made the hard parts hard (well, soft actually) was that the warmish weather (30s and 40s) of the last few days had led to some significant snowmelt. And many of the rock formations there are covered in a some kind of clay which turned into a super-slippery goo from the runoff. It was also pretty windy at times, with some strong gusts hitting me at a couple of tricky spots, so I was glad to have traction on my boots and my mountain axe for extra support. On a regular day, these would have been overkill, but under the conditions, they were somewhat helpful.
I read this trail description (of one of the trails I took that day) in their brochure
after I got back to my car: "
Strenuous. Very short but very steep, the Saddle Pass Trail is impassable after rains." Well, it hadn't actually rained, but it did somewhat mimic those conditions. In any case, I was glad to be there and see some beautiful formations. Again, there was not another soul on the trails, and I essentially had miles of parkland all to myself.
http://picasaweb.google.com/gokulpics2010/BadlandsSD?authkey=Gv1sRgCJiX8_H-0onwaw&feat=directlink#
Edit: Just remembered, on my way out of the Park, I also drove by the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, so that makes five national things in that part of the state.
