CHAPTER XV

Needles Road, Sylvan Lake, Harney and the Gorge

The road winds through the needle rocks, amid beautifully vegetated valleys and mountains to Sylvan Lake.

These roads are the much talked of feats of engineering skill. We can easily see why they are so considered. No barrier, no matter how formidable has proved indominable. In some places the road is merely a shelf on the side of a mountain. The rock is blasted out and the nice wide road, the perfect replica of our modern prairie highways, surfaced, is superimposed upon it. Slopes are gradual, the road wide enough for safety anywhere, and every other means of convenience to motorists has been considered. In one place there are possibly a half dozen switchbacks making it possible for a person to ascend a high mountain by gradual ascent on the shelf-like road, switchback and ascend more, almost straight above the road over which he has just come. You can look over the brink of the chasm and see several laps of the road up which you have come, and can look above and see the shelves built up there, over which you are to go before you reach the top. Marvelous, indeed, are the means that man through the divine guidance of a higher Being, we are forced to believe, has devised for overcoming the seemingly impossible problems. And the view from the road is marvelous. The great majestic stone mountains, the broad, deep, beautiful valleys, the swift tumbling mountains streams, fed by mountain springs, the so-called Needles, and last the sense of conquering all these, affords a feeling almost beyond description to the soul of the traveler.

We drive down through heavily wooded roads to the lake, the most widely advertised place in the Black Hills. Sylvan Lake is about a half mile in length, located right in the top of the mountains. It owes its size to the fact that its north end is made up of a dam filling the gorge through which the water tumbled in its course from its mountain streams, through Sunday Gulch to Spring Creek.

The lake is a beautiful one, bounded by tall, cold, gray stones, majestically reaching for the sky, and fringed with luxuriant forest trees. On one side of the lake is the Sylvan Lake Hotel and on the other side is the camp grounds. The Indians have named the lake “Karanip” or “Tear of the Mountain.” We go directly to the camp grounds and get settled for the night. The camp is not overequipped with conveniences, but is nevertheless a good camp, with a little store conveniently close.

We go to bed early so that we may get up early for the ascent of Harney Peak. Even with the early retiring three A. M. comes rather soon. But we are all life as soon as we awaken and we lose no time. Well shod we begin the ascent. This is to be an event. The climb covers three miles and a half. You’ll be ready to agree with me after making it, though these Black Hills people are very generous in the size of their miles. We start up the road marked “Harney Peak.” We could take our car part way, but the short distance and rough road makes this a poor policy.

We soon come to the stables where burros and ponies can be hired by those not wishing to make the trip on foot. These are not for the early or the ambitious. We pass them by.

The path soon begins to ascend. Progress becomes slower. The perfect road narrows into a footpath cut through the timber.

Up, up we go. At places the timber clears, giving us a grand view of the surrounding country. Then we plunge into the forest again and continue up, up, up. At the end of a mile or so we top a ridge and are relieved to begin descending into a shallow valley. This is a rest and encouraging. At the bottom of the valley is a brooklet of clear spring water. Here we take a drink before continuing our ascent.

Now we begin a real climb. The path is easy and open and the slope is gradual. But even at that it begins to tax one’s muscles. Squirrels and chipmunks dart across the path and gaze at the intruders from a safe perch in the trees. And some of these trees are giants, probably the largest found in the Hills. Springs arise here and there along the way. Beautiful flowers dot the path. Great gray rocks jut into the air at intervals. The path is indeed interesting. The coolness of the forest adds to its entrancing powers.

By and by the path grows steeper and we begin to take a switchback course up, up, up. Finally the vegetation thins out and the surface is mostly rock. We climb the rocks and at last emerge at the foot of a ladder leading up the crags where the fire lookout house is located. Up the ladder we go, and over the rocks toward the top. We catch a glimpse of the ranger giving us a dirty look as he hurriedly finishes his breakfast and makes up his bed. We give him plenty of time, while we gaze in four directions at the remarkable panorama extending a hundred miles before us. The sun, which we had expected to see rising, is smiling indulgently at us from far up in the sky. To the west we see Sylvan Hotel, mountains and forests. Turning toward the south we find ourselves looking at the historical Custer and on past into Wyoming. Far, far, to the south is the border of the hills. Closer are the Needles and Cathedral Spires and Mt. Coolidge. On to the east, fifty miles away and more, are the Badlands. Closer Mt. Rushmore sticks up its head as do various other bald heads. Away off to the northeast Bear Butte stands alone and to his left are Roosevelt Peak, Terry Peak and many of our other friends.

The view is nothing short of wonderful on a clear day, but is not as good when the clouds float below us or when the air is filled with mist. We go on up to the lookout station and register. Of course, we must ask the ranger our share of foolish questions. We would not be human if we did not display our ignorance up here. We just naturally feel that we must ask some kind of a question to commemorate the fact that we are up here.

We are now on the highest point in the Black Hills. Not only this, it is the highest point in the state and greater still, the highest point in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. We are 7,244 feet above sea level and about a thousand feet above Sylvan Lake. This little house away up on the top of a rock looks pretty frail beside the boulders upon which it stands. One would think that a breeze would blow it over the precipice hundreds of feet straight down. The house, though, is pretty well established, with heavy steel cables firmly rooting it to its place. Even at that, they’d better not hire a forest ranger up there who walks in his sleep.

We are given a card telling us that in the “Harney National Forest 20,000,000 board feet of lumber is harvested annually and through reforestation about 1,587,667,000 board feet are maintained permanently. 12,000 horses and cattle and 4,000 sheep graze on the forest annually. The area (net) is 508,000,057 acres. The annual revenue to the United States is $80,000 and to local counties $20,000. Summer sites may be secured from the Supervisor at Custer, S. D.”

The lookout away up here is for the purpose of spotting forest fires.

In the little house are instruments for seeing and exactly locating fires. By getting the exact angle of fires from two different stations and telephoning the results its location may be determined exactly by drawing a line at these angles from their respective stations. The fire would be where the lines crossed.

Well, we are the first up there this morning and now we prepare to descend. We start down the rocks and meet several people coming up, they, too, thinking they had been first up this morning. We must take a few pictures before going down to convince the folks at home that we’ve climbed Harney.

Down we go, down the ladder and around the corner to Peak Inn. Here refreshments and souvenirs may be procured. These have all been brought up the mountain by burroes at some little expense. An interesting trip, they tell us, is to make the return trip through Cathedral Spires. We, however, do not do this.

The descent can be made in a little less time than the ascent. Some short cuts can be made directly across where contours and cutbacks had to be made going up. Going down is decidedly easier than going up. All the way down we meet puffing folks; some fat, some tall, some carrying babies, all asking the same question, “How much farther?” Many a good natured joke is exchanged on the way. We meet troopers as well as pedestrians. The former seem about as anxious to reach the top as those walking. Perhaps those experienced in riding burros and trail ponies understand the reason for this.

Seven miles, at least, the round trip is quite a hike, but for those who can stand it (and this includes most of us), it is by far the better method of going up. Each one who makes it feels proud of the accomplishment. One boy about seven years of age remarked, “By Gawsh, I didn’t need to make it on any donkey. My own feet are good enough for me.” Well, we finally come to the stables again. We have met possibly fifty people going up and more are just starting. Some burros are all saddled and bridled, sleepily waiting for the start. Temptation prompts us to mount for a picture, even though our friends do insist on asking, “Now which is which?”

We arrive back in camp about five hours after we had started up. Pancakes, bacon and eggs are awaiting us. The question “are we hungry?” is a mild way of putting it. Food seems to disappear like magic, not just a little but great quantities of it. This little stroll seems to make one ravenously hungry and we derive genuine satisfaction from this meal. Somehow our fatigue seems to be appeased with our hunger.

Now we are ready for an inspection of the lake and its surroundings. The swans are the first things that draw our attention. They are beautiful, floating over the silvery surface.

Many are the fishermen trying for croppies and trout from the edge of the lake. Some have substantial strings of fish, too.

We take our leisurely way around the lake and find dozens of cars before the hotel. We join the group who are inspecting the souvenir shop and the hotel lobby. Both are interesting; both containing many curios from the hills. The hotel is especially interesting, and we must by all means take a meal with its charming host and hostess. We now go back through a slit in a rock to the gorge behind the dam. The first thing we see and hear is the water gurgling out of Gorge Springs and over the dam. From here we pick our way over the great boulders to the precipice where the water tumbles into the narrow gorge. What boy or girl or grownup is not thrilled by the descent, sometimes on foot, sometimes dangling sometimes crawling between huge rocks (the largest in the hills) sometimes leaping chasms, through dark holes around seemingly blind bends, finally emerging on the rocks far below, without having fallen off the rocks or getting our feet wet. Oh boy! it’s certainly great. We are now in the home of the elves. We can follow the stream down, down, until our view opens out far to the north.

We pick our way back and take a new route far up through the crags, towering above Sylvan Lake. Here again we get a marvelous view of the surrounding territory. Reluctantly we descend again, only to climb the crags on the opposite side of the gorge. Down again, we find our muscles getting a trifle fatigued.

We go back to camp near evening, having eaten lunch in the gorge. Now we get our dinner. Needless to say we are ready for it. We have packed several days’ experiences into a day. And it has been a memorable day. We spend the night and then start over that world’s renowned Needles Highway. The entrance is made through a gigantic gateway of towering rocks. A huge tunnel is blasted through one rock.

We must drive back to the wide ledge and park our car while we gaze over the edge of the precipice and past the great valleys to the high mountains of stone Needles in all directions. The view is indeed one to remember. The feeling of the grandeur of nature that this leaves with us is something that lives with us forever.

We pass on over this remarkable road cut through the mountain tops. The Needles Highway is all it is reputed to be. But one must take it slowly and stop to admire it to fully appreciate it.