"Black Hills" Mount Rushmore National Memorial by Dymphna1

There is so much to see and do in the Black Hills. Mount Rushmore was actually created to draw tourists to the state. The governor at the time knew he needed something like this for the economy. If you want to go to the Black Hills and not be a tourist - forget it. This was designed as a tourist haven, enjoy!

Getting to see Mt. Rushmore is the cost of parking. It is $10 per vehicle and the pass is good for a year.

They have a path way all the way up under the monument. There are some stairs involved with parts of it. There is an easy and hard path on the one side. Up on the left side they also have a small Indian village set up w/ a few tepees. I wish they were more authentic. Tepees were not made of canvas and they typically were not that tall in the past.

On the right side and down a few stairs there is a museum on the making of the monument. I saw small children running around with stamp books and getting things stamped as they went through the area. I believe the books were free, but you need to ask a ranger on that one. Also if you go down the elevator to the amphitheater they have several different displays and a book store.

Mt. Rushmore was never finished. I put up another picture of what it was supposed to be when finished. At least they are not playing with you about getting it down like with Crazy Horse. They have been working on that one for about 40 years now and still have a long way to go. Sad part about Crazy Horse is that I will not even go there. They charge way too much to get anywhere near it. It is about $10 per person or $27 for a car load, to park and if you want to drive up and through the hole it is another $20. Way too much because you don't really see it much better than what you see from the road. If they reduced the price they would make more money. People avoid it because of this. This is really sad because it is not being built with government moneys, only through what they earn. So they are shooting themselves in the foot about how they go about it.

Motorcycles are welcome in this area! Even when Sturgis is not being held there are bikes everywhere. Many bring their bikes on trailers and then ride them through the hills.

I am going to try and tie the different pages together from the different cities in the Black Hills to this page.

What it was supposed to look like when finished.

The Black Hills are made up of several different parks. Some are national parks and some are state parks. Mt Rushmore is a National Park as well as Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park. The state park I went to was Custer State Park.

From close up.

Throw a stone and you will hit a tourist spot here.

There is a coupon book sold at many of these places. It should reduce the cost of going to many of the sites. It is a good investment especially during the height of the season.

Rapid City
President's Alpine Slide in Keystone
Custer
Deadwood
Hill City