Mt. Rushmore

[3iron]

Wife and I are going to be in the Mt. Rushmore in August. Any suggestions on where to camp with 30" fifth wheel.
Also any recommended photographic areas you might recommend we visit?
Thanks for your help and best wishes.

[Uppercrust]

Darn I missed the backside when I was there last year. Another fun winery and brewery is in Hill City, sick and twisted and naked wine. There is also the Naked Winery in Custer.

[dan-nickie]

Don't miss the back side or the mountain ! 🙂

[Busskipper]

Dennis M M wrote:
We liked Custer's Gulch

We loved this place -- not to close and not to far - Just Right!

Quiet and well spaced out -- so much to see and do in the area.

X2

Also we were there during Sturges and it was not an issue - still lot's of bikes but not a crazy crowd. Quiets and allowed us to enjoy the area - only issue with the Bikes is Noise and they drive so slowwwwwww............(I think if they are out in Custer they are not the young guns but the Old Fa*t's)

BOL,

[Sailordive]

South of Deadwood is a great little place. Fish and Fry you need to call them but I am sure they have sites your size. We were there week. Before the Sturgis rally and found a space for 3 nights. It is close to Rushmoore and Custer State Park (a must do). My Amorites part is you catch fresh trout and the cook them for you.

[jgolden]

On Rafter j bar...... Great place, and very close to Mt. Rushmore. When we went to Mount Rushmore the parking pass was good for a pretty long period so on a number of mornings we would start our day with breakfast at the snack bar (more than just that, good breakfast) watch the people and the view out the hughe windows. Then off to see the other great features of this are.

[3iron]

Thank you kind folks for your reply's they are so very helpful. Ed; guess I missed the key as are camper really is not a 30" model, LOL. Would be great for towing though. Pull it out of the trunk and maybe blow it up with the air compressor.
Sturgiss activities will certainly be a problem for us to deal with, but the timeing is not changeable.
Best wishes to all.

[micar]

We stayed at Kemps Kamp in Keystone, while visiting Mount Rushmore.
Nice pull through sites, close to town and historical stuff.

[deltamaster]

The Crazy Horse monument was not begun or sculpted by Gutsun Borglum. It was begun by Korczak Ziolkowski and commissioned by Lakota leader Henry Standing Bear. Ziolkowski's heirs have continued the project since his death.

Gutson Borglum was the chief carver and artist on the Mt Rushmore project as well as the original Stone Mountain project near Atlanta.

The reason that it is still not finished and Mt Rushmore is has to do with federal money. Crazy Horse has been carved solely from private donations while Mt Rushmore was carved with Federal funds

Mt Rushmore was never fully complete, however after work was halted due to WW2 it was finally considered completed by congress MANY years later and finally dedicated some time in the mid-1990's.

[Murphsmom]

We stayed at Hidden Valley RV Park near Deadwood.
http://www.hiddenvalleydeadwood.com
Lovely park. We had a site right on the creek with a deck off the side of the trailer. The bathrooms/showers were spotless. Sites for large rigs. We were so early in the season that we woke up our second morning with four inches of snow on the ground.

If you are into wine tasting, the Prairie Berry winery in Hill City has some very interesting wines. No fee for their tastings, either. The Red Ass Rhubarb wine is outstanding. I don't normally like fruity wines, but this tasted like rhubarb cobbler!

[Jim_Shoe]

If you have a National Parks pass, entrance to Mt. Rushmore is free, but parking isn't. That may have changed since I was there. The people that lived in the area paid for the multi level parking garage and promised to make it free after it was paid for.
Be sure to see Crazy Horse Memorial while in the area. Its on US 16 about half way between Hill City and the town of Custer. Privately owned by the descendants of the same man that carved Mt. Rushmore. $11 per person, but any money collected aside from expenses is used to provide college admission fees for Native Americans living in the area. There's a museum and gift shop there as well. For an additional fee, you can ride a mini bus to the top of the monument and walk out on the arm. I did it and I felt like I could see both Canada and Mexico from there. (Slight exaggeration).

[pjsky]

The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally this year is the 75th one. They expect up to ONE MILLION motorcycles this year. So, from about July 25th to August 15th the Black Hills will be FULL. Also the price of almost everything will double or triple. Some things will be even higher that triple.

[OutdoorPhotogra]

Go photograph the prong horns in Custer State Park. If you haven't done Yellowstone there is plenty buffalo too but the pronn horns are a harder to get photo.

[DesertHawk]

🙂 What I have on the Black Hills Area of SD.

We have only stayed in the State Park campgrounds & at a Nat'l Forest CG. Not a lot of places to dump in the park however.

Never been to this one, but many people give it rave reviews: Rafter J Bar Ranch Resort - Hill City. Very pricey.

http://www.rafterj.com/

There is also a private Horse Thief RV Resort which is also close to Hill City.
http://www.horsethief.com/

Many RV parks in & around Custer as well. RV Park Reviews Custer, SD

Don't forget the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally August 3-9, 2015. A heavy use time in the BlackHills.

:C We really enjoyed the Glass Blowing Studio between Hill City & Keystone. Black Hills GlassBlowers - Keystone
We saw someone waving at a glass blowing shop when riding the Hill City Tain; we went back to see it, a neat place, friendly people.

:C Wildlife Loop Road twists and turns its way through the prairie and ponderosa pine-studded hills that harbor many of the park's wildlife, such as Bison. And The Iron Mountain Road is a work of art in itself. The highway connects Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The highway passes through some of the most beautiful scenery in the Black Hills and including three tunnels that frame Mount Rushmore in the distance. The road is famous for the "Pigtail Bridges" that allows travelers to drop or gain altitude quickly. The Needles Highway is a spectacular drive through pine and spruce forests, meadows surrounded by birch and aspen and rugged granite mountains. The road's name comes from the needle-like granite formations which seem to pierce the horizon along the highway. Visitors traveling the highway pass Sylvan Lake and a unique rock formation called the Needle's Eye, so named for the opening created by wind, rain, freezing and thawing.

Deadwood is northwest of Custer.....lot of History happened there, but is more of a Gaming Center now if into gambling. We stopped once years ago, when out kids were young; I wanted to see where Wild Bill Hickok was killed. We did go to a melodrama while there, but mainly just walk around some. It was just starting to become a gaming center at that time. Not stopped since.

[Karenys]

I agree with previous - we stayed at Rafter J Bar and LOVED it!