1
Custer State Park, gem of the Black Hills, home to herds of bison, pronghorns, flowers, blue skies and puffy clouds Harney Peak, the most popular hike in the Black Hills, with good reason.
Monthly Archives: June 2007
Last night in Spearfish, S.D. Claire could see Turtle sucked up the tossed onto the Yellow Brick Road.
Wal*Mart is on the far eastern edge of Spearfish. the tornado touched down three miles east of Spearfish, perhaps a mile or two from us. Yikes. Glad we didn’t know until morning.
However, the surroundings, pines, grass and wildflowers were a welcome change, and we enjoyed two days in the campground. There was a prairie dog colony between the campground and the tower, and they were somewhat habituated to humans; nobody shoots them here, and it’is possible to get a good look. When they are hunted, as they are on most all private property in Wyoming, they won’t let humans within a couple of hundred yards of them.
Our campsite was in the middle of a grove of cottonwoods, and the rustle of the leaves sounds like a gentle rain falling, even with the sun shining. Our sunroof gave us views of the small, heart shaped, leaves against a starry sky each night. Last night thunderstorms to the east added depth and interest to the stars and broken clouds. We got a sprinkle. Or was that just the cottonwoods?
June 10, Vedauwoo, Wyoming. We decided to check out a SE Wyoming bouldering spot; the photos we saw at the Wyoming Welcome Center reminded us of a place in Australia called Devil’s Marbles. It is on BLM land, so the camping was cheap, and half price for me, so we decided to make a day of it and stay the night. The hike around Turtle Rock, from the campground, was four or five miles, just right, and we had lots of daylight. We got distracted by a little bouldering of our own: Claire surprised me by asking to try a little climbing and she did very well. If I remember the old system, we might have done some 5.2, hard core! It was really fun, but the top was truly vertical and we had no gear, so we passed and made our way back down to the trail and finished the hike.