The Black Hills are full of winding and wonderful scenic drives. Last night, we did the Wildlife Loop, and today, we planned to drive Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road. But first, some fun photo ops with chainsaw art in Hill City.
Tom in the palm of the World's Largest Smokey Bear
Little Jana, big chair
Needles Highway is a spectacular 14-mile road through Custer State Park with epic views of the granite formations from which the highway gets its name. There are two very narrow tunnels on this road, the smallest of which is only 8 feet wide and 9 feet, 9 inches high. RVs beware!
Can we fit through there?
Needles Highway
Mount Coolidge is located just south of the southern end of Needles Highway. A narrow, unpaved road leads to its top. A closed gate at the bottom of the road has foiled us before, but today we found it open and drove on up. There is a stone fire tower at the top that's still in use, so you can't go in, but there's a large observation deck for visitors on the outside.
Mount Coolidge Lookout and Fire Tower
Cell and radio towers and their wires spoil a 360-degree view from the top of Mount Coolidge, but you're able to see The Needles, Black Elk Peak, Mount Rushmore, and Crazy Horse. Bring binoculars and a big zoom lens if you have one.
Crazy Horse from Mount Coolidge
Black Hills
Iron Mountain Road is 18 miles long, with 314 curves, 14 switchbacks, three pigtail loops, and three tunnels. The road begins in Custer State Park and passes by Mount Rushmore. The drive is demanding but fun, and the views are outstanding! You can see Mount Rushmore so well from the road that we didn't even bother to enter the national monument.
Tunnel framing Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore from the road
Washington's profile
We got back to Hill City early, so we decided to go on a brewpub crawl. We started at Miner Brewing Company, where we found the BEST BEER OF THE TRIP – the Miner Chokecherry Brown Ale, full of malty goodness. We would have gladly stayed longer, but they don't serve food.
Highly recommended!
Next, we went to Sick N Twisted Brewery, where Tom and I shared a 5-beer flight to try all the interesting selections. Honestly, none of them rocked my socks off, but Tom liked the ginger beer so much we left with a crowler, and their pizza was GREAT! This place was super fun.
Fun brewery!
Interesting beer names
Finally, we ended the crawl at Lost Cabin Brew Co., in easy walking distance of our airbnb. We had just enough time for one beer before 8:00 p.m. closing time, when apparently everyone would turn into a pumpkin. There wasn't much on tap that I was interested in, but we ended up choosing a very good hazy IPA, which we enjoyed in their pleasant biergarten.
Time for just one more