Devil's Tower Climbing - Durrance

Today's the day, we climb the leaning tower up the Durrance route.

Black Hills, Part 4 - Sylvan Lake

Screech ... what was that? It's Sylvan Lake! Tucked away between the Needles and Rushmore, we stumbled on this treasure. Simply gorgeous!

Black Hills, Part 3 - Needles

Driving around after our wildlife encounter, we headed through Custer Park and ended at the Needles. This area is climbable, but notorius for being run-out (in climber speak that means it's really far between saftey points when climbing). It can be very dangerous to fall here. We talked to a couple of climbers to see what they suggested, but ended up deciding the risk was not worth it and we headed north back to Rushmore.

Black Hills, Part 2 - Buffalo

On entering Custer Park, we found some wild Donkeys crossing the road, soon, though, we were in a herd of buffalo.

Black Hills, Part 1 - Driving "Around"

Today we went to take look around the Black Hills. Too much for one post, though. Here we were driving to Custer Park and noticed the stacks of wood a ranger had mentioned to us at Rushmore and some curvy, curvy roads.

Climbing Mt. Rushmore

Climbed the back side of Mt. Rushmore. (No there's no rumps back there). Ben did awesome climbing a very, very run out 5.8. Three pitches: Garfield Goes to Washington. Notice the salt-like crystals in one picture. It's slippery quartz.

Arrived at Mt. Rushmore

Finally arrived at Mt. Rushmore, and we're going to take a look around before climbing here tomorrow. The photo with all the people in it was taken during the lighting ceremony where they called all past and current military people onto the stage to introduce themselves.

Badlands

After Sioux Falls and the Corn Palace we drove through the Badlands. Glad I wasn't in a horse drawn wagon!

The video promising a question in the next video didn't turn out. You're not missing anything.