Category: gallery-outdoors

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Black Hills in Bloom

Black Hills wildflowers are bursting with color. Spearfish photographer John Mitchell captured this gallery over the weekend.

  • Black-eyed Susan in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Bunchberry in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Crab spider in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Daisy in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Prickly Pear Cactus near Spearfish.
  • Prickly Pear Cactus near Spearfish.
  • Prickly Pear Cactus near Spearfish.
  • Prickly Pear Cactus near Spearfish.
  • Striped Coralroot in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Striped Coralroot in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Striped Coralroot in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Twinflower in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Wild Rose in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Wood Lily in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Wood Lily in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Wood Lily in the Northern Black Hills.
  • Yucca along the Centennial Trail.
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Highway 18 Color

By Bernie Hunhoff

Leaves may look the same wherever you go in autumn — red, gold and yellow — but every country road has its own personality.

Travelers on Highway 18, which dips and ducks above South Dakota’s shared border with Nebraska, probably don’t choose the route for fall colors. But the highway’s rural charm of cowboy culture, small towns and Indian reservations makes it an always-interesting drive that takes on a special aura in late autumn.

The terrain and the flora are especially scenic as you come and go from the spacious Missouri River valley in Bon Homme, Charles Mix and Gregory counties. Going from east to west, the farms grow into ranches. Trees, towns and people all become fewer, though no less colorful.

The river itself is a good place to stop and stretch. A beautifully manicured pioneer cemetery with 158 graves lies just west of the Fort Randall Dam, near the old yellow chalkstone chapel. A marker by the front gate lists not only the usual names and dates of the deceased, but also the causes of their deaths: pneumonia, lightning, scurvy, horse accident, drowned and — in the case of Herman A. Greening in March of 1886 –“found dead on prairie.”

What a beautiful place to spend eternity, or better yet to just explore on an autumn afternoon.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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A Photographer’s Playground

I’ve never outgrown my fascination for toys. A few years back a friend asked me to lead a workshop photographing toys. My first reaction was,”Who’s going to sign up for that?” He suggested I do a Google search and it opened a whole new creative doorway and reason for collecting toys. I discovered there are thousands of people around the world creating very fun photographs with toys.

Toys now accompany my camera on just about every trip. These images are some of my favorites from around South Dakota.

Chad Coppess is the photo editor for South Dakota Magazine

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The Badlands in Winter

Thousands of visitors pass through Badlands National Park during the summer months, but swing through during winter and you see a different side. Sioux Falls photographer Scott Korsten drove the Badlands Loop Road in early February, a day of constantly changing weather and scenery.”It was a quiet day, and I was nearly alone in the park,” he says.”With its colored layers slightly frosted in snow, every turn in the road provided a new perspective to appreciate. These were just the type of scenes I’d hoped to see and as usual, the park did not disappoint.” Here are a few photos from that day.