Wow! What a place! We know that the signs all say this is a STATE park, but it is unlike any state park we have ever seen before. Between the wildlife, the lakes, the lodges, the scenic drives…it feels much more like a true NATIONAL park experience! And with so many other attractions so close by, this is a great place to spend a week or two, so go on and book your stay! You won’t regret it!
We split our stay between two campgrounds located inside the park. Our first five nights were spent at Game Lodge Campground, and nights six through ten at Stockade Lake North Campground. Both were very well maintained with clean bathrooms and attentive camp hosts. The feel of the two was quite different, though. Game Lodge is in a large open area, with paved sites that are pretty close together. Stockade Lake North, on the other hand is set in the trees, sites are gravel, and there is more space between you and your neighbor. It has a more “campground” feel, while Game Lodge has a more “RV park” feel. While we enjoyed the feel of Stockade Lake North better, we much preferred the location of Game Lodge. It is located within walking distance of the park’s visitor center and right at the entrance to the wildlife loop road. On multiple occasions were able to see bison right from the Bigfoot. Nothing screams vacation quite like watching wildlife while sitting at your table eating breakfast!
If you ask anyone who has visited this park what their favorite part is, chances are dang good that they are going to say the wildlife! There is just so much of it! As the matter of fact, we think it would be impossible to drive the Wildlife Loop Road and NOT see some! During our visit we drove that loop multiple times (think four or five – we lost count) and every single time we were greeted with tons of animals! We saw elk, coyotes, pronghorn, whitetail and mule deer, burros, ground squirrels, rabbits, many prairie dogs, and so, so many bison! For our group, the fan favorites were the prairie dogs. They are just so entertaining to watch!
Put all that wildlife in such a beautiful landscape of rolling prairie, and it just doesn’t get much better than this!
Along the Wildlife Loop Road is the Bison Center and Corrals. This is a great place to learn about the bison the yearly round up they do here every year to assess the health of the herd as well as select some bison to be sold in order to control the population. The round up is open to the public and would be an amazing sight to see! It happens every year in September.
All of that would be enough to make this a worthy destination, but this park doesn’t stop there. There are also beautiful lakes set amongst the rocks, with beautiful drives to get to them! Just getting to Sylvan Lake is an adventure! While there are other ways to get there, if you are comfortable driving the Needles Highway, it is a must. This road snakes up and through the needles section of the park where there are huge rocky spires in stark contrast to the prairie below. Also along this road are three tunnels that will give you a run for your money. Make sure to check the dimensions of these tunnels before starting on you way to make sure you will fit. The Ram 5500 should technically fit, but the width was too close for comfort for us, so our friend Matt drove his single rear wheel truck on this adventure (thank goodness!) At the end we were greeted by the beautiful Sylvan Lake where we walked the trail around the lake and challenged ourselves to the Sunday Gulch trail. We went down the gulch and then walked back up through the forest. Going this direction, down was extremely steep and rocky and while up was still a climb, it was not nearly as steep as going through the gulch. We would definitely do it this way again, but if you have knee problems you might want to go the other way. Actually, if you have knee problems, this might be one you want to skip altogether! It wasn’t a terribly long hike (2.8 mile loop) but we were all feeling it when we finished! We will say that during our visit, the Sylvan Lake area was absolutely the most crowded area of the park, so plan accordingly and try to arrive early, but don’t miss it!
We also did the walk around Legion Lake and hiked the Stockade Lake Trail. The views from both were great and while they weren’t easy hikes, they also weren’t particularly difficult.
The park has several historic lodges located in various areas. We enjoyed bison meatloaf sandwiches for lunch at the Blue Bell Lodge one day, and were fascinated by looking around the Game Lodge, where President Calvin Coolidge based himself in the summer of 1927. It was considered his “summer white house.”
The drive up to the Mount Coolidge Fire Tower is steep, but not too long, and very worth the drive for the views you get from the top. It is still a working fire tower (there were park staff occupying it while we were there) and on a clear day, you can see Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, and the Badlands from here. We definitely saw Crazy Horse, but not the other two. Maybe we saw them and just didn’t know what we were looking at!
Our time in Custer wasn’t all fun and games, though. Anyone who RVs knows that something is always bound to go wrong, and this trip was no exception. When we left home, we noticed that our toilet wasn’t holding water in the bowl as it should and that the feature of half pushing the flush pedal to fill the bowl with water wasn’t working. Long story short, it was totally our fault. We messed up when sanitizing the water system and ran the bleach-water through the toilet. This caused the waste ball seal to shrink and not seal properly. Luckily, we were able to find the replacement parts along the way and our first night at the park was spent pulling out the toilet and making the repair. Just how everyone wants to spend their first night of vacation, right? At least we were able to get it fixed and have a working toilet again quickly!
Our trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota was a success! This was a trip that we have wanted to take for years and we were not disappointed in the least. Custer itself is worthwhile, but when you add in Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Wind Cave, and Jewel Cave (see our previous posts), it is an area full of wonder, history, and scenery. Where will our next adventure take us? Only time will tell!
Until next time!
