Custer State Park Highway
A typical scene along the Needles Highway
We take our leisurely way around the lake and find dozens of cars before the hotel. We join the group who are inspecting the souvenir shop and the hotel lobby. Both are interesting; both containing many curios from the hills. The hotel is especially interesting, and we must by all means take a meal with its charming host and hostess. We now go back through a slit in a rock to the gorge behind the dam. The first thing we see and hear is the water gurgling out of Gorge Springs and over the dam. From here we pick our way over the great boulders to the precipice where the water tumbles into the narrow gorge. What boy or girl or grownup is not thrilled by the descent, sometimes on foot, sometimes dangling sometimes crawling between huge rocks (the largest in the hills) sometimes leaping chasms, through dark holes around seemingly blind bends, finally emerging on the rocks far below, without having fallen off the rocks or getting our feet wet. Oh boy! it’s certainly great. We are now in the home of the elves. We can follow the stream down, down, until our view opens out far to the north.
We pick our way back and take a new route far up through the crags, towering above Sylvan Lake. Here again we get a marvelous view of the surrounding territory. Reluctantly we descend again, only to climb the crags on the opposite side of the gorge. Down again, we find our muscles getting a trifle fatigued.
A Needles SceneCanedy Photo
We go back to camp near evening, having eaten lunch in the gorge. Now we get our dinner. Needless to say we are ready for it. We have packed several days’ experiences into a day. And it has been a memorable day. We spend the night and then start over that world’s renowned Needles Highway. The entrance is made through a gigantic gateway of towering rocks. A huge tunnel is blasted through one rock.
We must drive back to the wide ledge and park our car while we gaze over the edge of the precipice and past the great valleys to the high mountains of stone Needles in all directions. The view is indeed one to remember. The feeling of the grandeur of nature that this leaves with us is something that lives with us forever.
We pass on over this remarkable road cut through the mountain tops. The Needles Highway is all it is reputed to be. But one must take it slowly and stop to admire it to fully appreciate it.
A Pleasant Drive