Tag: Black Elk Peak

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Pilgrimage for the Soul

By Lex Talamo

Lex Talamo became immersed in Lakota culture as she spent several years teaching writing to middle schoolers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

I was 22 when I struck out from my home in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, teaching license in hand. My assignment seemed simple: teach 80 Lakota middle school students how to love writing, and to write well.

Pine Ridge, among the poorest places in the United States, soon assailed me with unanticipated problems. Many of my students’ home lives were marred by violence, poverty and abuse, which often resulted in unruly classroom behavior. My isolation, two hours from Rapid City, led to many”dark nights of the soul” that threatened to swallow me. I had fallen into a slump of dreading the mornings, the days, the rest of my life, and I didn’t know how to refocus my energy.

One afternoon, the Lakota Studies teacher wheeled his squeaky cart, complete with feathered rod and buffalo skull, into my classroom. His lesson was about the seven sites he said were sacred to the Lakota. “There is still power for our people in those places,” he told the students.”That is why our people still make pilgrimages, to this very day, to reconnect with the Great Spirit and pray for healing.”

I copied the list: Wind Cave, Sylvan Lake, Black Elk Peak, Bear Butte, the Badlands, the Black Hills and Devil’s Tower. I promised myself I would visit them all.

***

I decided that Wind Cave — the origin place of the Buffalo People, according to Lakota legend — would be the perfect place to start. The 115-mile trip would take me about two hours from the village where I taught. I spotted only a handful of cars as I followed Highway 18 west through a land of windswept beauty that left me dazed. Tawny prairie dogs barked and bustled around their colonies and several majestic buffalo grazed nearby as I arrived in Wind Cave National Park.

Bison, the noble beasts at the core of Lakota culture and once on the verge of extinction, still dot the West River landscape.

I signed up for a cave tour, which our guide began by recounting the story of Alvin McDonald, an eccentric teenager who moved with his family to the area in 1890. He had trouble making friends, so he sought sanctuary within the cave’s uncharted depths. Our guide flipped a switch in the large room, plunging the space into absolute darkness.”Think about that,” she said.”Think about exploring this cave, with its sudden drop offs, by yourself, and with only a candle for light.” She flipped the switch again, illuminating the water dripping off cave formations and cratered walls.

McDonald rolled out string as he explored so he could find his way around the cave, she continued. He left little puzzles — strings of letters — along the cave’s walls with the candle’s flame. Our guide showed us sooty markings on the cave ceiling, and then beamed her light into a crevice in the rock wall.”But my favorite story about Alvin involves this room and this passage,” she said.”If you’ll look toward my light, you’ll see a rare and beautiful crystal formation. Alvin knew there was a passage behind this, but to get there, he would have to destroy the crystal. He chose to leave the passage unknown, and the crystal intact, out of his respect for his cave.”

After the tour, I found McDonald’s grave, marked by a bronze plaque, near the natural entrance to Wind Cave. A Native American proverb popped into my mind:”Give thanks for unexpected blessings on their way.” McDonald’s story had sparked something in me, made me feel alive and reminded me that every day could hold unexpected blessings, as long as I showed up.

***

My next pilgrimage took me to Black Elk Peak, the sacred mountain where the Lakota welcomed the Thunder Beings each spring. KILI radio, the single station my car picked up, blared from my stereo as I tore down Highway 44. The road to Sylvan Lake, from which I could access the mountain trailhead, meandered through such tight turns above sheer rock precipices that my palms were sweaty and white. I reminded myself of what Reagan, my teacher friend on the Rosebud Reservation, had written to me once:”The hard stuff is always the good stuff. The hard stuff is what makes the story.”

Prayer flags adorn tree branches near the summit of Black Elk Peak. Photo by Paul Horsted

Halfway around the lake (really a manmade dam), I found a trailhead leading to Black Elk Peak and veered off the paved path. The way was steep and rocky, with giant metal handrails posted in one haphazard section of boulders. Jumping from craggy rock faces to the trail below, I felt like a child. I felt free. Unhindered. The sunlight on my face, which I missed so often due to the long hours I put in at school, invigorated my spirit. The solitude of the trail also strengthened me; I passed only a few people on my ascent.

I reached a point where the dirt path led to a wash of tangled woods; when I retraced my steps, I could not find the trail. I was still lost when the sun set and the temperature dropped. I found a cave-like crawlspace under an outcropping of rock. It was at least 10 degrees warmer inside than out, so I crawled in. I listened to the wind shriek past my sanctuary. I resolved to sleep if I could.

The sun’s rays peeked into my cave at dawn the next morning. I crawled from the space and tried to find the trail. Hours passed. Miles passed. When the sun shone directly overhead, hot and heavy in the sky, I abandoned all efforts to find a path. I picked a direction and ran. I did not stop until I heard the sound of a highway. I burst from the woods and found myself on an endless stretch of asphalt that gave no clue as to my location. No signs. No cars. No people. Then, a red sedan. I stayed by the side of the road, waving my arms above my head in distress. The car sped up and rushed past me.

I had no watch, no phone and I was out of water. I am going to die out here, I thought. Then a white minivan appeared on the horizon, making slow but steady progress down the hill. I prayed there were nice people inside. Then I stepped into the center of the road, waving my arms wildly. This time, the vehicle slowed and stopped.

I knew I must look crazy. My arms were scratched and bleeding from my crazed run through the woods. I had bits of leaf litter and twigs in my hair. I kept my hands loose and visible by my sides as I approached the minivan.

“Hello,” I tried, when the driver’s side window rolled down an inch. My voice came out choked and scratchy. I tried again.”I was hiking and I got lost …” My voice cracked. I took a step back, wanting to show that I was harmless, terrified he or she would leave me.”I was hoping you could point me in the right direction,” I said.”I’ve been wandering for the last 14 hours. I had to spend the night on the mountain.”

The window rolled down to reveal a pale-skinned couple in the upper bounds of middle age.”You poor thing,” the woman said. She sounded British.”You must be frozen. It was 34 degrees last night.”

Arriving at Sylvan Lake proved to be a turning point in Talamo’s pilgrimage.

I waited while the British gentleman searched for Sylvan Lake in his phone’s GPS.”It’s that way,” he said, pointing down the hill. I asked how far. He said,”Thirteen miles.” I started crying. The woman twisted in her seat and started clearing out the back of the minivan.”Get in,” she said.”We’ll give you a ride.”

The man got out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for me. I slipped inside, babbling my thanks.”I promise I’m not a serial killer,” I said. They laughed; the man assured me they were not serial killers, either,”just an old British couple eager to see the great United States of America.”

They seemed at ease with me. They were also chatty. They asked what I did for a living. I told them I worked as a teacher in a reservation school. They showed genuine interest.”How is that?” the man asked.

“It’s hard,” I said. The woman asked how I coped, if I believed in God. I told the woman I did not know.”God is my answer to just about everything,” she said.”I trust that the people He puts in my way will be the ones I am supposed to meet and learn from.”

About 5 miles later, the Silver Bullet came into view.”There!” I shouted, way too loud.”That’s my car!” The man pulled into a parking spot near mine. They refused money when I offered. The man thanked me for”adding some excitement” to their lives. The woman said, softly,”I can’t wait to tell our friends that we picked up a hitchhiker.”

I waved as they drove off and thought, too late, that I had not asked for their names. I turned and looked out over Sylvan Lake.

The pilgrimage’s mission was accomplished. I had never been so glad to be alive.

***

In November, temperatures plunged. I knew I had only a short amount of time left to explore before blizzards, with their shrieking winds and bone-chilling cold, ravaged the state. After Sylvan Lake, I was terrified of getting lost while hiking by myself. But I wanted to continue my journey.

I took my scathed soul to the Badlands. The sky was a wet, watercolor blue, in sharp contrast to the sand-colored rocks and white cliffs I passed on the way into a parking lot by an overlook. The rest of the parking spots were empty.

I chose Notch Trail, the shortest of three trails detailed on a brown sign. The trail led to a breathtaking vista — layers upon layers of striated rock, sharp angles, peaks like steeples stretching out to specks on the horizon. I found a rock crevice that cradled my body perfectly. I sat down. I put my palms flat against the rock. I closed my eyes. I felt the increased pulse of my heart, and through my hands, the heartbeat of the earth. I felt the strength of the land lace up my palms, through my body. When I opened my eyes, the world seemed three shades brighter.

The Badlands hold significance for the Lakota and several other indigenous tribes. Photo by Paul Horsted

“Thank you,” I told the winds, the earth, and whatever might be listening.

I walked back to my car, believing I had completed a successful hike. Then the wind blew, so fiercely that it turned me around toward an exhibit sign that declared,”The Baddest of the Badlands.” I spotted the first trail marker, a stubby yellow pole about a foot high just beyond the sign, and I felt a hunger so sharp and fierce it surprised me. I wanted the challenge. I started forward.

Mushroom-like formations sprouted from a sea of craggy rock. I felt alive, following this trail across the beautiful land of extremes. My walk became a symbolic act of spirit. I was not sure where I was going or how much farther I had to go, but I was willing to take the journey. Going one step at a time, I reached the final yellow marker, identifiable by a corresponding red stripe at the top. Another canyon vista stretched out to the horizon. Below, the rock dropped steeply away, leaving me dizzy from the height.

I stood on the precipice, lost in the savage beauty surrounding me, until the wind buffeted me away from the edge. The sun was sinking, and I beat a reflective retreat to my car. Blown by the wind, now caught under one of my car’s tires was a crumpled Badlands brochure.

While my GPS calculated my route back to the reservation, I flipped through the brochure, with its colorful photographs of narrow-leaf yucca, prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets. My eyes settled on a quote, attributed to author Kathleen Norris:

“The prairie is not forgiving. Anything that is shallow — the easy optimism of the homesteader… the trees whose roots don’t reach ground water — will dry up and blow away.”

The trip left me feeling empowered, eager and unafraid for what might come. That night, safely ensconced in my school-issued housing, I emailed my principal.”I feel very grateful and blessed to have this job,” I wrote.”I would like to stay for a third year as the middle school writing teacher, if you think I am doing a satisfactory job.”

I looked at what I had written, felt a trill of fear in my heart, and hit”Send.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2019 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Reaching New Heights

By John Andrews

Paul Horsted (left) and surveyors Jerry Penry and Kurt Luebke conducted what they believe to be the first accurate survey of Black Elk Peak in nearly 120 years.

Standing inside the stone fire lookout tower atop Black Elk Peak on a crystal-clear day, a person can see hundreds of miles across South Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana. You feel like a king surveying his realm. You’re standing on the highest point in South Dakota, the spot long touted as the tallest between the North American Rocky Mountains and the European Pyrenees along the border of France and Spain. If you have a map, it will say you are 7,242 feet above sea level.

But that map is wrong, according to surveyors Jerry Penry and Kurt Luebke, who in the fall of 2016 took a team of volunteers and conducted perhaps the first accurate survey of the historic mountain in more than 100 years. Over the course of two days, using equipment and methods that didn’t exist when the United States Geological Survey last triangulated a handful of high points in the Black Hills in 1897, the team concluded that Black Elk stands 7,231 feet high, 11 feet shorter than the widely known and accepted elevation.

Black Elk’s measurements have differed since man first tried to assign it a number in the late 19th century. Sometimes the discrepancies came in hundreds of feet. Even modern estimates differ based on the particular points considered. The highest natural rock? The top of the stone lookout tower? The tip of its lightning rod? Some other prominent point?

Penry chose to conduct his survey to the highest natural rock, so with equipment in hand on the morning of September 15, 2016, he and the team began their ascent.

*****

The birth of Black Elk Peak began more than 1.8 billion years ago, when a vast pool of molten magma cooled and solidified below the earth’s crust. It rose with the Black Hills Uplift, which began about 62 million years ago. By around 30 million years ago the uplift had ceased, and erosion left much the same landscape that we enjoy today.

The first structure placed atop Black Elk Peak was little more than a small table placed there in 1911 to spot wildfires. The Forest Service later built this wooden lookout, which has since been replaced by the stone tower that we know today. Photo by Charles D’Emery/Paul Horsted Collection

The first white men to try to ascertain its height were members of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 1874 expedition into the Black Hills. Custer and his 7th Cavalry had been sent from Fort Abraham Lincoln near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota, to scout potential fort locations and to investigate rumors of gold in the Hills, which remained within the Great Sioux Reservation under terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

Having established camp at the present townsite of Custer, a small party escorted by a company of cavalry left on the morning of July 31 to explore what the soldiers already knew — and what was already appearing on crude maps of the region — as Harney Peak. Lt. Gouverneur K. Warren had bestowed that name upon the mountain in honor of his commanding officer Gen. William Harney, known then for his battles against Plains Indians including the Grattan Massacre in 1854 and the Battle of Ash Hollow in 1855, in which Harney’s troops destroyed the Brule leader Little Thunder’s village along Blue Water Creek in western Nebraska, killing about half of his band’s 250 members. It was precisely because of his reputation for violence against Native Americans that tribes in 2016 successfully lobbied the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to rechristen it Black Elk Peak in honor of the Lakota holy man Black Elk (see sidebar).

Custer was accompanied by Newton Winchell (geologist), Aris Donaldson (botanist and correspondent for the St. Paul Pioneer Press), chief engineer William Ludlow and Ludlow’s assistant William Wood. After an 8- or 9-mile horseback ride along Laughing Water Creek and around Buckhorn Mountain, the party left their animals to scramble up the final 200 feet of Harney’s granite.”Wedging ourselves into the clefts, and pushing ourselves up after the fashion of chimney sweeps, clinging to projecting points and straddling over ridges, we at last reached the top,” Donaldson reported in the Pioneer Press.

It was then, however, that someone noticed an even higher point, and a higher point after that. The party scaled until finally they could climb no more. They had reached perpendicular granite walls that stood nearly 40 feet tall and could not be negotiated without ropes or ladders.”Prof. Winchell made the attempt and partially succeeded, but a loose rock just above him made it dangerous to climb higher,” Donaldson wrote.”He stood above us all.”

Ludlow carried a barometer, which he used to calculate the peak’s elevation at 9,700 feet. The following year, in 1875, the U.S. Geological Survey dispatched the Newton-Jenney Party to create a map of the Black Hills. Astronomer Horace Tuttle took measurements using a Green’s mercury barometer, considered among the most accurate tools available in the late 19th century for calculating elevations. Tuttle compared his readings on the mountaintop to another barometer inside the Union Pacific Railroad station in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where a precise elevation was previously established. By comparing the differences in readings, Tuttle concluded Harney Peak stood 7,369 feet high. Noting the incredible disparity between his reading and Ludlow’s from the previous year, Tuttle measured again, this time arriving at 7,368 feet.

Rock highlighted in green was removed during construction of the stone tower in the 1930s. Photo by Paul Horsted

It’s worth noting that the original”true summit” of Black Elk Peak may not be the location of today’s fire tower. Valentine McGillycuddy, who worked closely with Tuttle as topographer on the Newton-Jenney Expedition and lived a long and influential life that shaped Rapid City and the Black Hills, selected what he considered the highest point on a spire about 100 yards south of today’s widely recognized and well-traveled summit.”Setting up and leveling it [the transit], we [McGillycuddy and Tuttle] swung the telescope to every point of the compass and Harney Peak — the rock our instrument was on — topped every other bit of granite, near or far!” McGillycuddy later reminisced.”It is possible that the Forest Service has selected a more accessible peak to designate as their Harney Peak station, for not many people have succeeded in making that ascent of the original and only Harney.”

The subsequent years were beset with confusion about the mountain’s true elevation. In 1877 the U.S. Geological Survey of the Territories published its latest edition of Lists of Elevations. Harney Peak was included at Ludlow’s 9,700 feet. Results from the Newton-Jenney Expedition weren’t published until 1880. Other travel publications indicated the elevation at anywhere from 7,440 to 7,700 feet. Tuttle’s result didn’t appear in print until the U.S. Geological Survey’s bulletin of 1891.

Then in 1893 the USGS created the Black Hills’ first triangulation network in which points were placed on selected peaks, including Harney. That was followed in 1896 by creation of the Deadwood Datum. Officials determined that a benchmark at the Deadwood depot of the Fremont, Elkhorn & Missouri Valley Railroad offered the most accurate sea level elevation in the Hills. From that point, hundreds more permanent benchmarks were established. A triangulation station was placed on Bear Mountain, just over 10 miles west of Harney Peak, and another on Crow’s Nest Peak, 16 miles northwest. Penry believes elevations were transferred from nearby benchmarks to these triangulation stations since they were easily accessible. The point that had been placed atop Harney in 1893 was easily sighted from both of those locations, which is most likely how crews arrived at a new elevation of 7,240 feet. The intervening years have added another 2 feet, leading to the 7,242 feet that appears on most maps, websites and other documentation.

*****

Paul Horsted has admired the view from atop Black Elk Peak dozens of times. The promontory and its recognizable fire tower have featured prominently in his photography since he and his wife Camille Riner moved to Custer 22 years ago.

Horsted found his niche in exploring 19th and early 20th century photo sites of the Black Hills and other spots around South Dakota and re-photographing them. His book Exploring with Custer, written with Ernest Grafe in 2002, follows the trail of that 1874 expedition and includes images taken by the expedition’s photographer, W.H. Illingworth, paired with Horsted’s modern-day versions.

Horsted helped take measurements atop McGillycuddy Peak. Photo by Daryl Stisser

Horsted became particularly interested with the geography around the summit of Black Elk Peak and what he came to think of as the nearby McGillycuddy Peak while studying photographs taken during the Newton-Jenney Expedition of 1875, including one image which portrays Tuttle and McGillycuddy surveying from this alternate summit. Noticing changes in the rock over the years, he learned of the differing elevations and contacted Jerry Penry, hoping to find a definitive answer.

Penry, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, has been a surveyor since 1984. Licensed in Nebraska and South Dakota, most of his work involves determining legal boundaries and property lines. But surveying is also a hobby. He began traveling to the Black Hills in 2010 to meet friend and fellow surveyor Kurt Luebke, of Missoula, Montana. Together, they spend vacations searching the Hills for old benchmarks and other monuments from the early days of surveying.

Penry was immediately intrigued by the elevation mystery.”I couldn’t come up with a definitive reason that that elevation existed on Black Elk Peak, so I really got curious,” Penry says.”There is no documentation that says someone actually had measured up to that peak to determine that elevation (7,242), but it did appear on some of the earliest maps of the Black Hills that the U.S. Geological Survey produced in late 1890s. As near as I could tell, they did it by triangulation from different points placed on mountain peaks. By turning angles both horizontally and vertically you can determine distances from point to point and also the elevation.”

So on a breezy but beautiful September morning, Penry, Luebke and Horsted ascended Black Elk Peak hoping to come away with a true elevation. They were accompanied by Daryl and Cheryl Stisser of the Sylvan Rocks Climbing School and Horsted’s wife and daughter, Camille and Anna Marie Riner.

The job combined using historic benchmarks with modern technology. The crew sought out two geodetic marks placed in 1934 along the present-day Mickelson Trail. Utilizing those, they created a new benchmark in an open area where global positioning devices could accurately be used. Then they headed up the mountain. Over two days — using levels, lasers, prism rods, advanced GPS transmitters and receivers and a lot of trigonometry — they came away with what Penry believes to be”the most precise survey ever done on that peak, I’m sure.”

The results were: 7,231.32 feet to the highest natural rock on Black Elk Peak near the stone lookout tower; 7,257.20 feet to the top of the tower; and 7,262.30 feet to the tip of the lightning rod mounted on the tower’s roof.

Inside the lookout tower, surveyor Jerry Penry (with level instrument) and Paul Horsted transferred the precise elevation from an outside point. That helped determine the floor and roof elevations. Photo by Paul Horsted

They also measured 7,229.41 feet to the highest natural rock remaining on McGillycuddy Peak. Studying 1875 photos of that area, Horsted says a block of granite about the size of a small car once jutted from the top but has since disappeared.”I think McGillycuddy was correct that it was a slightly taller area at the top of the peak,” he says.”Most people hiking by will wonder what the big fuss is about, but I want to give McGillycuddy his due as a topographer. He took this really seriously, and I do believe that he was correct in his view that he was on the actual summit of what he knew as Harney Peak.”

An interesting postscript to the measurements is that they will all change once again within a year. The 2016 elevations were calculated using the North American Vertical Datum of 1988, a leveling network that spans the continent. When the National Geodetic Survey updates the datum to rely solely on information gleaned from satellites in 2022, all elevations in the Black Hills will drop 2 feet, shrinking Black Elk Peak to 7,229 feet.

*****

Though the survey was completed nearly five years ago, maps today are still likely to read 7,242. That’s because both Penry and Horsted recognize that any official change could be a long and arduous process.”I didn’t really pursue it through a lot of channels, but it should be known,” Penry says.”I spoke to a few people in the Forest Service. It’s on so many documents, and it’s just been copied from one place to another, so I’m not real confident that it would ever be changed.”

ìIt’s just been fascinating and fun to know that the elevation has probably been incorrectly stated for more than 100 years,” Horsted says.”I’ll leave it to Jerry and Kurt to try to convince the powers that be that they need to update the maps, but that’s going to take years. It’s not unlike the name change. It’s difficult to erase something that’s been written down hundreds of times. So it’s going to be a while.”

Nevertheless, South Dakotans can still delight in a hike to South Dakota’s highest spot. The air remains clean and refreshing and the view just as inspiring — even if you’re only 7,231 feet high.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2021 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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South Dakota Resolutions

By Katie Hunhoff

Editor Katie Hunhoff and other South Dakota Magazine staffers share resolutions to explore the state in 2021.

We have a New Year’s tradition at South Dakota Magazine to make resolutions on traveling South Dakota. As you can imagine, our staff knows the state pretty well. The resolutions are a fun way to challenge ourselves to try new places and activities.

This year the resolutions are different because of the pandemic; we are all looking for travel opportunities that can be accomplished with safety and health in mind. Maybe our resolutions will give you some ideas.

Hannah Schaefer, our photography and editorial assistant, plans on reading books she collected at the South Dakota Book Festival. On her list is Unfollow by Megan Phelps-Roper (the South Dakota Humanities Council’s One Book South Dakota for 2020), Murder on the Red River and Girl Gone Missing by Marcie Rendon and According to Kate by Chris Enss. (On a side note, our managing editor put together a collection of South Dakota books that are must reads. You’ll find his suggestions in our Nov/Dec 2020).

Departments Editor Laura Johnson Andrews has a couple of day trips planned.”I have been holed up for most of 2020 due to COVID concerns, so at this point, a trip to Toby’s Lounge in Meckling would be a nearly unbearable thrill,” she says. Toby’s is about a 10-minute drive east of Yankton and is known for delicious broasted chicken. Laura also wants to venture a little further to the town of Colome.”I’d love a tour of the Colome area with our food columnist, Fran Hill. I haven’t been there since the South Dakota Outhouse Museum moved to town, so I feel like I’m overdue.”

John Andrews, our managing editor, is planning a trip around some magazine stories he wants to write.”I’m writing a story on Peter Norbeck to coincide with the holiday in his honor, which I don’t think many South Dakotans know about. I think the story of how his house ended up in Geddes and that small town’s own resolve to save it is pretty inspiring.”

Bernie Hunhoff, our editor at large, also wants to visit an historic place.”In all my travels of South Dakota, I have never visited the site of Sitting Bull’s death along the Grand River in Corson County. I hope to get there in 2021. By about any standard, he must rank as the greatest and most influential person to have lived in our region over the last 200 years.”

My resolution is to hike a new peak every time I visit the Black Hills, starting with Black Elk Peak, which I am ashamed to say I have never climbed. But I think all of us probably have a similar destination that we never took the time to experience. That’s part of why we love printing the magazine — to remind people what we have in our own backyard and spark the desire to start exploring.

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A Black Hills Search for Solace

By Brook Gassman


Editor’s Note: South Dakota has become a second home for the Gassman family of Platteville, Wisconsin. Stephen Gassman is an acclaimed photographer who has worked extensively in South Dakota and contributed many images to South Dakota Magazine. When his wife, Suzanne, died in June 2019, the family headed west, hoping to find healing at some of their favorite Black Hills places. The Gassmans’ daughter, Brook, wrote this upon their return. Another essay and photographs by Stephen appear in the May/June 2020 issue of South Dakota Magazine.

Ninety-eight signs. That’s how many roadside advertisements there are for Wall Drug between our hometown of Platteville, Wisconsin, and Wall. One year, while my brother, Mom and I were traveling there to visit my dad, I counted them all. For hundreds of miles, I watched out the window, passing hills, grassland, prairie and the Badlands, just to count the signs. At the time, I thought it was a fun activity to enjoy and laugh about with my mom and brother. Ninety-eight is such a ridiculous number of signs to advertise for a place that’s claims to fame are free ice water and 5-cent coffee. That number held memories of how beautiful nature could be when you experience it with your family. With that number, I associated the splendor of Sylvan Lake, the awe of the Badlands, and the powerful feeling of finishing the hike to Black Elk Peak. Now, that number reminds me of better times before my mom passed away.

My mom was an incredible woman who, even when she couldn’t walk on her own, wanted to experience every bit of nature she could. We pushed her in a wheelchair during her final weeks so she could feel the wind on her face and experience the changing of the seasons. She would often wear a shirt she got in South Dakota that said,”Hiked It, Liked It.” This was one of her favorite shirts along with a plethora of many other outdoorsy-inspired graphic T-shirts. They reminded her and us of how important nature was, inspiring us to go on hikes and live life past its limits. My mom often encouraged us to do everything in our ability to experience the world, and, in South Dakota, this consisted of the Badlands, Sylvan Lake, Black Elk Peak, Reptile Gardens, Sunday Gulch, and, her favorite, The Purple Pie Place. Now that she’s gone, these places are little snow globes, memories caught in time that will always remind us of her.

We planned a trip to South Dakota immediately after the funeral. My family and I needed to get away, reminisce of better times while simultaneously making beautiful new memories. Our biggest goal was the climb Black Elk Peak with some of her ashes. So, on a Wednesday in June, my aunt, uncle, dad, brother, cousin and I set out on a 3-mile climb to the highest peak in South Dakota, letting my mom take one last hike. On the way, we shared a few laughs, met some other kind tourists from Wisconsin, and reveled in the beauty of the West. When we reached the top, we breathed in the cool air and let our mother see for thousands of miles, because I know that even though she can no longer experience the beauty of this earth, if I see it, she will too. After we finished, we hiked back down, releasing some of the pain and giving us the ability to move forward a little easier. While the path up the mountain might have seemed difficult, it was the hike down that made it all worth it.

So, I guess those 98 signs pointed us in the right direction — a path of healing, caring and family. South Dakota showed me that no matter what, there is something new to look at, something beautiful to experience, and someone new to cherish. I feel blessed to have such a wonderful state by which to forever remember my mother. I feel honored to say thank you to the West. I urge it to be wild, free and full of memories.

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Ten Years of Hiking Black Elk Peak

By Rebecca Johnson

Doing the same thing repeatedly may sound boring but it hasn’t been for Matt Jackson, a Rapid City carpenter who has hiked Black Elk Peak once a month for the last 10 years. His first trek was in 1980 while visiting from Chicago on a church retreat. Jackson was so amazed by the Black Hills’ beauty that he moved there in 1982. He was awed again while hiking Black Elk in the fall of 2005 and pledged to climb each month the following year. One year turned to several and Jackson thought,”No reason to stop.”

Black Elk Peak’s rocky, tree-strewn paths lie within Custer State Park and the Black Hills National Forest, with the most frequently used trailheads at Sylvan Lake. Jackson quickly explored every inch of those, and then realized that since his first climb in 1980 the routes had been changed to fight erosion. Staying on the trails is wise for novice hikers, but exploring off path is allowed — and Jackson has. He’s also a rock climber, so he’s comfortable scrambling through unfamiliar territory. He especially likes discovering old trail markers.”It’s kind of like forensic hiking to figure out where stuff went,” Jackson says.”Some of the abandoned trails are just spectacular.”

Unpredictable weather makes the area genuine mountain country. Jackson encountered large amounts of rain and hail on an ascent last May.”I was in an area I’d never been before and got kind of disoriented,” Jackson recalls.”But I could always see Black Elk Peak.” The sky had cleared when he began his descent.”Because of the amount of rain and snow, the water in this particular area was really flowing. Way down in one of those rocky canyons there was a gushing waterfall probably 25 feet tall. I’d be surprised if 10 people a year saw that spot.”

And few have probably seen the sunrise from the iconic fire tower, but Jackson did one June.”That happens at about 5 o’clock in the morning, so I had to leave home at 2:30. My wife said, ‘You know, you’re getting kind of crazy with this.’ But on the other hand, she’s very supportive because she will shuttle me on some of the hikes. When it’s a nice, calm and beautiful day, when a sensible person gets out and hikes, we’ll go together,” Jackson laughs.

One day in 2006 Jackson’s wife plucked a four-leaf clover. And though he didn’t find it, maybe the luck was still his. Jackson completed his 10-year streak in December 2015, at the age of 59.”The last two hikes I did up Black Elk Peak were over 15 miles. A lot of people I know 10 or 15 years younger, they couldn’t do it if they wanted to. I’m just thankful to be able to do it.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2016 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Second Chances

Seldom in life do we get second chances. And the prospect of it happening 161 years after a calamity? Very rare. But our Nov/Dec 2016 issue has just such a story. It happened when Paul Stover Soderman of Colorado discovered he was a descendant of General Harney, the man responsible for a massacre of Lakota men, women and children in 1855 at Blue Water Creek in Nebraska. The killings happened after Harney rebuffed Chief Little Thunder’s extended hand. A few years ago, Soderman befriended the chief’s descendants.