Wildlife. Beautiful lakes. Scenic drives. Rock formations. Hiking. Unique views of Mount Rushmore and so much more. Custer State Park is simply stunning.
Shae and I have visited many state parks on our 50 state road trip, but I think Custer State Park in South Dakota is my new favorite.
We’d originally planned to visit Custer State Park in September as that’s when they do the buffalo roundup. That involves 1,300+ bison being driven across the plains and seems like it’d be a sight to behold, but that didn’t work out for our schedule this year. We’re planning on doing that in 2024 instead, but we still wanted to visit Custer State Park in the meantime to avoid the crowds that’ll be there for the buffalo roundup.
May was the perfect time to visit. We visited on a nice, sunny day but which wasn’t too hot. Visiting early in the season meant there were baby bison on the Wildlife Loop road, while being there outside of the summer months meant there were far fewer people in the park compared to July and August.
We didn’t have time to see all of the park, but we did explore as much of it as we could and fell in love with it. Here’s why we thought it was so incredible.
Start of Custer State Park
At the time of our visit in May 2023, it cost $20 per vehicle to enter Custer State Park. That gives you entry for 7 days from the date of issuance, or you can pay $36 for an annual pass.
Our first stop was the visitor center.
The park is pet-friendly, although dogs aren’t allowed inside buildings like the visitor center. We were visiting with our dog Truffles, so I waited outside while Shae went inside to get more information about the park and check out the exhibits.
There’s a pretty creek right outside the visitor center, along with picnic tables, so if you’ve had a bit of a drive to get there, this certainly isn’t a bad place to stop for a quick picnic before continuing.
Custer State Park provides visitors with a great quality booklet with comprehensive information about the park. This includes driving maps, trail maps, information about wildlife, etc.
It even had a fantastic feature – a flow chart to help you pick a trail (or trails) to suit your desires.
Custer State Park has lots of areas to explore. We’d done a little bit of research ahead of time and had seen that the Iron Mountain Road and Needles Highway were particularly highly rated, so we decided to focus on those and go from there.
Iron Mountain Road was our first destination. On our way there we spotted bison in a couple of locations. One grazing by the side of the road…
…and the other hanging out in a large pond.
Iron Mountain Road
Iron Mountain Road is an 18 mile road that connects Custer State Park with Mount Rushmore. Its key features are the tunnels blasted through rock along the route.
What makes the tunnels particularly notable is that they each frame Mount Rushmore in the distance.
As you proceed up the mountain, you get closer and closer to Mount Rushmore. You can stop at Norbeck Overlook along the way; this has telescopes you can use to see the four presidential faces closer up.
The tunnels have pull-offs before and after them so that you can safely park to get photos.
The final tunnel – Doane Robinson Tunnel – gives the best and closest tunnel framing of Mount Rushmore. This tunnel is named after the historian who played a significant role in the construction of Mount Rushmore National Memorial.
The photo above was taken with my phone; Shae got a more clear photo with her camera.
Sylvan Lake
At the end of Iron Mountain Road, we took Hwy 244 to the west, then drove down to Sylvan Lake. This ended up being my favorite part of the visit for reasons that’ll quickly become clear.
It was about 1:30pm by the time we arrived, so we decided to take advantage of the beautiful views from the picnic tables by the lake.
Sylvan Lake seems to be a popular stopping point and so has a fairly large parking lot. It also means there are restrooms there for visitors to use.
I imagine that Sylvan Lake is a particularly popular location in the summer when the water’s warmer and people can go swimming.
The area is also a fun place for people nimble enough to clamber up and over rocks. There are some large boulders next to the lake that are fairly easy to climb up on to in order to get even better views of the lake.
It’s such a beautiful place; if we lived in South Dakota, I’d definitely get a Custer State Park annual pass just for Sylvan Lake alone.
After doing a spot of clambering, we went for a 1.1 mile long, easy hike around the lake by taking the Sylvan Lake Shore Trail.
One section of the trail appeared to get very little sunlight as there was still some snow remaining.
Seeing as it’s a loop trail, you can take it in either direction. We decided to go clockwise around the lake and about halfway along we reached the dam which is what created the lake in 1881.
Continuing along the trail, we heard some running water. There was a small gap in the rock walls which had a narrow waterfall running through it.
The trail continues uphill which gives you beautiful views from a rocky overlook facing the opposite direction to the boulders we’d clambered over earlier on.
I could’ve quite happily spent all day at the lake, but there was more that we wanted to see, so we headed back to the car and continued on our way.
Needles Highway
The final section of Custer State Park we visited that day was the Needles Highway.
The Needles Highway features all kinds of rock formations along the scenic drive.
The most popular stopping point on the highway is just before or after (depending on which direction you’re traveling) the Needles Eye Tunnel.
There’s a parking area large enough for several vehicles. A rock formation there is known as The Needles Eye:
Shae managed to get a great photo of the sun peeking through the eye of the needle:
We then continued on to another overlook…
…and then another.
The fact that it’s a winding road with various places you want to stop to take photos means you don’t drive very quickly – something Truffles appreciated in her role as window dog.
By the time we’d finished up on the Needles Highway, it was about 4:30pm. We wanted to visit the nearby Prairie Berry Winery too that day, so we headed there afterwards, but Shae returned a few days later early in the morning to drive the Wildlife Loop Road.
Wildlife Loop Road
Custer State Park’s Wildlife Loop Road is 18 miles long and is open year-round, unlike the Needles Highway which is closed in the winter due to treacherous conditions and the Iron Mountain Road which is subject to closure depending on driving conditions.
Early May seemed to be a good time to drive the Wildlife Loop Road as the baby bison were out in force.
Shae took loads of great photos of wildlife that day, so be sure to check out this separate post for more about what that drive is like and what she saw.
Final Thoughts
Custer State Park has everything you could want from a state park and more. Lakes, mountains, scenic drives, wildlife, hiking and much more. If you’re planning a trip to South Dakota to visit Mount Rushmore, be sure to build in time to spend at least a day visiting Custer State Park – you won’t be sorry!
[…] Truffles and I drove through Custer State Park while staying in Rapid City, but I knew that I needed to go back without […]