A Scenic Road Trip Through South Dakota’s Black Hills

Hairpin curves, switchbacks, spiral-shaped pigtail bridges, one-lane tunnels as narrow as eight feet across—these are some of the twists and turns my husband and I encountered while driving the Black Hills in western South Dakota last September.

It was our third visit over the span of two decades, and we’d finally learned that the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway is the destination. What we hadn’t quite mastered yet was the time needed to fully explore the byway’s nearly 70-mile double loop. Two days not enough to cover 70 miles? Not if you travel the way the road’s mastermind intended.

“You’re not supposed to drive here at 60 miles an hour,” proclaimed Norbeck, after personally surveying the area on foot and by horse while scouting routes for Needles Highway, which opened after Custer State Park became South Dakota’s first state park in 1919 and before the carving of Mount Rushmore National Memorial started in 1927. The conservationist legislator who served twice as governor of the state and three terms as US senator, further declared that “to do the scenery half justice, people should drive at 20 [miles per hour] or under; to do it full justice, they should get out and walk.”

An engineered road trip

Norbeck, who was instrumental in tourism developments such as Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial, wanted visitors to drive right through the state’s most scenic areas to get to them—slowly. He mapped the routes for Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road, and he pushed engineers who said the roads couldn’t be made. Dynamite to blast tunnels through granite and inventions such as the pigtail bridge to navigate sudden elevation changes made the roads possible. Today millions visit the area each year, and many share our inspiration: We came here to drive roads that promised wildlife and scenic views. We covered the entire byway but realized quickly there were more stops we wanted to make than our two days would afford.

After flying into Rapid City (South Dakota) Regional Airport, we steered our rental car 30 miles to Mount Rushmore National Memorial in time to catch the hour-long evening ceremony featuring a ranger talk, 20-minute film and patriotic music leading up to seeing the memorial illuminated. If you plan to attend the nighttime event, be sure to arrive early enough to walk the Presidential Trail before it gets dark. Don’t let the half-mile distance of the trail fool you—it includes 422 stairs, though the effort is rewarded with a different view around every corner of the 60-foot faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

We continued on the byway 20 miles to the town of Custer, where we based ourselves at the Rocket Motel, a no-frills motor lodge that opened in 1950 and has been updated yet retains its nostalgic vibe.

Exploring Custer State park

We got an early start the next morning and fueled up on the way out of town at Feel Good Café on breakfast sandwiches and banana splits made with yogurt, fruit and granola. From Custer, it was fewer than 5 miles to the western entrance of Custer State Park’s 71,000 acres of forest, lakes and prairies. We headed 10 miles into the park to the main visitor center, where we picked up a program schedule and checked out exhibits, including a map showing the current location of the park’s 1,400-head bison herd and a small band of burros, descendants of wild donkeys that hauled visitors to the top of Black Elk Peak in the 1920s.

The only planned activity of our day was a 4:30 p.m. Buffalo Safari Jeep Tour, which would take us along parts of the park’s Wildlife Loop Road. Yet once the ranger mentioned a large group of bison had remained near the road all morning, we didn’t resist heading there earlier. We had no regrets on the overlap—we were able to go at our own pace, get out to explore the indoor exhibits at the Wildlife Station Visitor Center and the Bison Center, and see hundreds of bison—so many crossing the road that it caused a bison jam at times. The burros, including several newborns, lived up to their extroverted reputation by sticking their heads inside vehicles begging for snacks.

Timing your visit 

Summer sees the majority of Custer State Park’s 2.5 million annual visitors. In-park restaurants, lodges and activities open in May and close near the end of October, and businesses in the adjacent towns begin shutting down after the annual Buffalo Roundup at the end of September. Expect limited services and programming (and less traffic) in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall. Needles Highway typically closes to vehicles from November to April.

Heading up needles highway and down Iron mountain road

Driving the full 18 miles of the Wildlife Loop from the main visitor center deposited us a short drive from our next destination: the Needles Highway section of the Norbeck Scenic Byway. We took a ranger’s suggestion to start near Legion Lake Lodge and drive south to north, watching gently rolling meadows change to rugged granite mountains as we gained elevation.

The 14 miles can easily take an hour, more if you stop at the scenic pullouts, hike a trail or picnic along the route. You’ll know you’ve reached the pinnacle of the drive when you notice the road’s namesake needle-like granite formations jutting skyward. Look up as you enter or exit (depending on your direction) when you go through the narrow tunnel in this area to see the distinct needle’s eye formation.

We reached the end of Needles Highway in time for a late lunch on the patio at Sylvan Lake Lodge and a walk along the 1.1-mile shore loop. From there, we used the byway to connect with Iron Mountain Road. A ranger later told us we had met 314 curves (we hadn’t counted!) and 14 switchbacks in the 17 miles of Iron Mountain Road that we drove from Mount Rushmore National Memorial south to the eastern entrance of Custer State Park.

Architectural highlights included three wooden spiral-shaped pigtail bridges and three one-lane tunnels fashioned from granite and positioned to perfectly frame the presidential carvings of Mount Rushmore. Don’t miss stopping at 5,445-foot-high Norbeck Overlook; from there, you can see Mount Rushmore from about 1 mile away and take in sweeping views of the Black Hills.

Doubling up on wildlife loop road

Our route got us back to Custer State Park for the last jeep tour of the day, a perfect time to see and hear the snorts and grunts of too many bison to count—from 2,000-pound mature beasts to one just a few weeks old—plus pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep, deer, prairie dogs and burros. Our tour guide Bob, a retiree with a penchant for history, provided excellent commentary and took us off-road for a 360-degree view of bison slowly moving across grassland.

The Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway is not a road to drive for the purpose of checking it off a list, it is an experience. Make time for exploring history and engineering marvels, viewing wildlife and some of the country’s most stunning landscapes, and simply slowing down because the roads demand it.