Custer State Park part I - Camping in the Black Hills

Custer State Park, North Stockade Lake Campground

We arrived here on Tuesday, August 16
The sites here are huge, especially for a park in a highly popular area. Spaces are fairly wide, and deep, so it's easy to get yourself tucked into the trees, or find the perfect location for a tent. We're going to be here for several days so it's nice to have a little space to settle into.

The wildlife here are so accustomed to campers that deer and wild turkeys often stroll through the edges of camp. In fact, when Steve opened the door one morning to take one of the dogs out there was a deer standing right outside the door! Fortunately there don't seem to be any bear concerns at all, and I don't know how they do it, as the park is so large, but somehow they have established cross fencing to keep the buffalo out of the housing and camping areas.

We often take afternoons off to just sit and enjoy the area, or to walk around the campground and chat with the neighbors.

The dogs enjoy visiting too, and all the kids want to pet Watch, which works out just fine as he loves kids. Shiner has finally figured out that if she's friendly she gets petted too.

As this is a state park, not federal, their rules for dogs are a bit different. Dogs they have to be on a 10 ft. leash in the campgrounds (it's 6 ft. in federal parks), they are allowed on trails, and can be off leash in areas that aren't in the campground. That means they won't have to wait for us in the trailer so often, and they get quite a bit more exercise.

Stockade Lake is just through the woods and over the hill, so that was one of our first long walks. It culminated in a nice swim in the lake.

We soon discovered that, much easier than hiking over the hill and through the dense trees, we could just load the dogs up in the truck and go out on the highway less than 1/4 mile to the Gordon Stockade area.

The dog's favorite swimming hole is just down the gravel road from there the Stockade parking area, so we've been there several times to let them swim and play keep-away with the stick they chase. It's rough work supervising them!

On our second visit to the lake we discovered an added "bonus", and least I thought it was fun. Watch loves to woof when he and Shiner are playing, and that large granite wall across the lake sends back not one but two perfect echoes. As they both wanted to bark at those other dogs across the lake it took awhile to get things quieted down. It's not often you hear a good clear echo, much less a double one!                      

These visits to the lake provided a good chance to inspect some of the large grain granite that is exposed here and there along the roadside. It's not as course everywhere, but this type is very attractive. It's very eye catching, as the chunks of mica, tourmaline, and quartz are so large they reflect like mirrors. There is an abundance of pink feldspar mixed in, which makes for a really pretty overall color in the cliffs. This whole area is a geologic wonderland!

I know it looks like oatmeal, but it's really shiny!

This stockade is the historic structure for which our campground and the lake are named. The stockade was the result of illegal occupation of the area by gold miners, who had been told to leave as the land was not open for mining, but belonged to the Native Americans by treaty. They occupied it anyway, and occupants were eventually removed by the cavalry. More of the history here. The existing stockade is a replica, but along one side there are three small buildings that are older than the rest of the structure. They are what remains of an earlier incarnation.

Across the lake from our little swimming hole there is a tall marble marker. On one of our afternoon drives we stopped to check it out.

The marker is for Annie Tallent, the first white woman in the area, a teacher, who with her husband was part of the group that illegally occupied the stockade during the brief time is was used. Her story is long and very interesting. The details of it are here, with the last few paragraphs describing her time in the Black Hills, and what she represented to the Whites as well as the Native Americans.

The general weather pattern this time of year seems to be dark clouds building up in the afternoon and then chilly evenings or a little thunderstorm. We only had one or two days that were really stormy, and over all the temperatures were nicely warm during the day.

We usually "tour" in the mornings and then take some time in the afternoon and just sit under the huge ponderosa pines and watch the dogs snooze and the deer wander around the edge of camp. One of the brochures we picked up said the largest of these pines are sometimes called called "yellow bark" as their bark does turn more yellow with age. We've been around these before, but never knew until it was pointed out here, that the bark smells like - depending on your individual nose or the individual tree - vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch, or pineapple. Sure enough, we sniffed a couple of them, and found a vanilla and a pineapple. That pineapple one is right at the back of our trailer in the photo. No wonder the forest smells so sweet!

The nearby town of Custer is handy for picking up groceries or shopping for souvenirs. There are a variety of shops and restaurants, and lots of lodging options for those who don't want to camp. Everyone is friendly, and though the place gets busy it never seemed too crowded.

Camping photo album