South Dakota's High Point - "Harney Peak"

South Dakota's high point is Harney Peak at 7,242 feet. It is located in west South Dakota in Custer State Park, which is known for its wildlife (Bison, Pronghorns and Bighorn Sheep which graze through the State Park). It is also in the Black Hills area which includes the Mount Rushmore national monument.

The trailhead is located in Custer State Park's Sylvan Lake day use area and the trail about a 6 miles round trip. We didn't get on the trail until 11am on Monay 23rd June. It was a great day, warm but not too hot and the area was very busy with tourists. There are two trails to teh summit. #9 which is supposed to be shorter, least steep and the most popular trail, and #4 which is a little longer, offers more variety in terrain and takes you past the Cathedral Spires rock formations. We decided to take trail #9, but someone got lost and ended on the #4 trail on the way up. The trail took us through the trees and afforded us great views of fantastic rock formations which are all around the Park including the Cathedral Spires rock formation. We reached the Harney Park high point at 1pm, which is marked with a lookout tower building. There were lots of tourists there as we sat and admired the view which was truly very inspiring with its interesting rock formations set amongst the trees. We decided to take the trail #9 down and two hours and we were back at the parking lot.

We camped at the Custer State Park Sylvan Lake campground for two nights. The first night we were greeted with the brightest (and scariest) lightning storm I'd ever seen. The lightning would brighten the entire sky which can look quite alarming when you're lying in a very vulnerable tent! Each night it would rain, but the next morning we would have the most beautiful warm blue sky day! Such is the weather in summer! Sylvan Lake was recently made famous as the site where the movie National Treasure 2 was filmed. Its a very beautiful area with the large rock formations rising from the lake waters. It is also very close to the Mount Rushmore national monument (30 minutes), Badlands (2 hrs) and of course, the Custer State Park where you have to take the wildlife look and spot the Bisons grazing!