Five days in South Dakota’s Black Hills

Buffalo stream over a hillside at Custer State Park in South Dakota before the 2023 Buffalo Roundup. Pam LeBlanc photo

I live in Texas, known for its cowpokes, wide open spaces, and Wild West vibe. But a five-day trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota reminded me that Texans aren’t the only folks comfortable herding hooved animals and kicking up their heels outdoors.

I discovered a state park where bison roam, a hot-air balloon flight that served up killer views of the wilderness, and mountains with carvings more than twice as tall as the Erwin Center in Austin – plus wineries, a steam train and plenty of great food.

Hold onto your hat as I walk you through the highlights.

Float over the Black Hills of South Dakota

Black Hills Balloons offers rides in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Pam LeBlanc photo

I climbed into a rainbow- colored hot -air balloon piloted by an Irishman for a peaceful, hour-long float over the pine-covered hills and granite spires of southwest South Dakota.

Far below our hovering craft, ponds glinted silver in the morning light and the occasional dog yapped out a “hello.” Sometimes, passengers spot elk, deer, or other wildlife from above.

After we came in for a smooth landing, we toasted with champagne and orange juice. Black Hills Balloons offers flights from May to October.

Read more: An Alaskan Adventure of a Lifetime

Sample South Dakota wine

The more than 60 wineries around Fredericksburg have put Texas on the map for wines made with grapes. In South Dakota, Prairie Berry Winery uses fruit like chokecherries, buffalo berries and plums that grow wild on the prairie to craft an array of fruit wines.

Included in the lineup? Red Ass Rhubarb, a tangy blend of raspberry and rhubarb juice, and the seasonal Pumpkin Orange, which tastes like Halloween in a bottle.

Visit Crazy Horse Memorial

The Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer, South Dakota, is emerging from a granite mountain. Pam LeBlanc photo

The first blast in the construction of the largest mountain sculpture in the world – the Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer – went off in 1948.

Caleb Ziolkowski, director of mountain carving and the 39-year-old grandson of original sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, led our small group to the top of the mountain, where we gazed up at the face and hand of a Native American warrior emerging from the granite.

Crazy Horse’s eyes are as big as two pickup trucks; his lips are the size of a school bus. “The guy who did them was very brave to hang out under the nose all that time,” Ziolkowski, 39, told us as we peered into the famous Lakota warrior’s enormous nostrils.

Crews have spent the last year working on Crazy Horse’s hand, and I marveled at his thumbnail, the size of a dining room table. “I walk by this, and it gives me goosebumps,” Ziolkowski said. “It wasn’t like this just a few months ago.”

When it’s done, the 563-foot high and 641-foot-wide carving, built without federal funding, will stand as a symbol for all Native Americans. It will also dwarf the presidents on nearby Mount Rushmore, whose faces are a mere 60 feet high. The sculpture is envisioned as part of a vast educational complex that will one day include a university. While you’re there, drop by the Indian Museum of North America to see more than 10,000 artifacts and catch a demonstration of native dancing.

You can see carvers at work Monday through Friday, weather permitting. No word on when Crazy Horse might be finished, but it won’t be in my lifetime – or yours.

“It has the capacity to make people think differently about the world and their place in it,” Ziolkowski said. “We want it to have that impact. We’re building something for the ages.”

Hop a train

Cesar Meza works on the 1880 Train that goes from Keystone to Hill City, South Dakota. Pam LeBlanc photo

The 1880 Train makes the hour-long run between Keystone and Hill City several times a day from May and October, with special events like the Holiday Express with Santa Claus each December.

I settled onto a wooden bench and watched brakeman Cesar Meza twist the tips of his waxed mustache as he collected tickets from passengers. From my window seat I could see Black Elk Peak, the highest point in South Dakota, old telegraph poles, and plenty of gorgeous rock formations.

The steam-powered train has been running as a tourist attraction since 1957, and despite its name, it’s pulled by locomotives built in the 1920s. It chugs up a 6 percent incline when it departs Hill City, then creaks and groans as it rolls over 20 miles of track. Meza told me it once hauled dynamite and construction supplies used to build Mount Rushmore.

Read more: Slowing Down to Soak in the Beauty of Big Bend

Admire stone-faced presidents

From the train’s terminus in Keystone, where tourists can watch choreographed western gunfight shows at the Red Garter Saloon, it’s a short drive to Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

You’ll want to spend an hour or two walking down a flag-lined promenade to an observation deck. There, you can gawk at the 60-foot likenesses of the four U.S. presidents carved into the side of a mountain.

George Washington, our first president, is most prominent, but you’ll also see Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Theodore Roosevelt, who set aside millions of acres of public land for parks, and Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the first step toward ending slavery.

John Borglum, who was born in Idaho to Danish immigrants, designed the sculpture. A team of 400 workers carved the memorial, earning between 35 cents and $1.50 an hour for their efforts.

If you’ve seen the classic film “North by Northwest,” you might remember the scene where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint scramble around the craggy features of President Lincoln. While some background scenes were filmed at the park, nobody actually crawled onto the faces. Those scenes were filmed in a studio.

Nearly 3 million people visit the memorial each year. Visitors can watch a short film, explore exhibits, and see tools used to carve the heads. During the summer, the park holds a nightly lighting ceremony, too.

Explore Custer State Park in South Dakota

A chipmunk snacks at Custer State Park in South Dakota. Pam LeBlanc photo

Custer State Park feels more like a national park than a state park, with its four lodges, nine developed campgrounds, five lakes, summer stock theater and roughly 1,500 bison that freely roam its 71,000 acres.

Don’t miss Sylvan Lake, where you can take an easy, 1-mile hike around the lake, which is surrounded by huge rock formations that look like they were built out of Silly Sand. For a challenge, hike the 7.1-mile Black Elk Peak Loop to South Dakota’s highest point. The Cathedral Spires look like jagged, decaying teeth jutting out of a hillside.

Plan on more than just a day to get to know it better.

Watch South Dakota’s most famous roundup

Colby Brown poses with his horse Blue before the 2023 Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup. Pam LeBlanc photo

The first Friday of each September, 60 cowboys and cowgirls, some drawn by random lottery, herd the park’s 1,500 bison into holding corrals during the annual Buffalo Roundup. The bison are vaccinated, branded, and sorted, and a third of the herd is culled for an auction held in November. The auctioned animals are used to supplement private herds or butchered for meat; the rest are released back into the park.

I won a seat in the back of a pickup truck that rumbled alongside the thundering herd. The bone-jarring experience gave me a taste of what people here have been doing for generations.

“The buffalo is the icon animal of the prairie,” said resource program manager Jason Gooder. “There’s no other place you can see all the animals together running at one time.”

Riders must bring their own horses. They better make sure they don’t spook around bison, which smell – and act – differently than cattle, too.

“It’s like a three-hour adrenalin rush,” Milt Stengel, 73, who has ridden in the roundup eight times, told me.

The thrill of danger is real. “You don’t want to get too close because a buffalo can turn on a dime,” said Tiffany Keiser, another rider.

More than 14,000 visitors watch the spectacle from two viewing areas atop hills in the park. At a coinciding art festival, vendors sell everything from bison-shaped holiday ornaments to metal signs that say, “Don’t Pet the Fluffy Cows.”

The park’s Bison Center, which opened in 2022, provides information about the world’s largest publicly owned bison herd. You might even meet some friendly burros, which congregate there looking for handouts.