SYLVAN LAKE at Custer State Park, South Dakota

 

Custer State Park is known as one of the best state parks in America and Sylvan Lake is its crown jewel.  The lake gives the appearance of a glacier created lake, but in truth it is manmade.  It seems that Theodore Reder constructed a dam across Sunday Gulch Creek in 1881. A mile long loop trail encircles the lake and the many rock formations provide ample opportunity for scrambling and posing for photographs.

Many more strenuous hikes start  around the Loop Trial, but none are as much fun as the hike around the lake with your family.  

The rock formations that surround half the lake resemble the ruins of a gothic castle. The lake located five miles from Mt Rushmore and was featured in the movie, National Treasures: Book of Secrets as being located behind the mountain.  It is one of the more photographic lake vistas that I have ever seen.  We hiked the trail counterclockwise leaving the rock scrambling to the second half of the trail.

The trail seems to dead end at the rock wall which surrounds the dam.  The bridge over the dam is accessed by negotiating some rocks on the banks of the lake to reach the bridge sidewalk.  

The bridge goes nowhere as the trail snakes behind the rock wall.  But from the dam you can get a nice view of the lake and the spillway.  Along the trail around the rocks, passing through a narrow passage you can enjoy the first of many rock scrambles.

If you look around, you may even find a cave to explore!

I checked out the spillway and got a nice shot of the bridge from beneath the dam.

Walking up the trail from the dam, we began our rock scramble in earnest. But we first had to pause to watch a rock climber negotiate one of the massive granite towers that surround the lake.  This is something a Fat Bald White Guy would never do!

Trudging up trail stairs, I was reminded that we were hiking at 6000 feet, the same elevation as the Grassy Bald at Roan Mountain!  Did I say anything about how I hate trail stairs!   But at the top of the stairs there were many opportunities to climb high above the lake on the rock castle walls.

From the top of one of these rock walls, I captured one of the best shots of the morning of the rock formations on the shoreline behind the trailhead. 

As a parting gift, the lake gives hikers one last enticing rock climb over large formations that protrudes into the lake forming a granite peninsula. While I was not looking Grayboy and Billy Buck climbed to the top and taunted me from above.  Oh how youth is wasted on the young!

If there is a perfect short hike in South Dakota, I believe we found it while hiking the Sylvan Lake Loop. It was a short well maintained trail which I am sure can get quite social.  The scenery is stunning.  The rock scrambling is always fun. I wish we had time to rent a kayak and explore the lake more.  

Virginia is for lovers so they say but South Dakota is for kissers it would seem! It seems that Billy Buck caught Whitdawg and Grayboy in a moment of tender reflection at Sylvan Lake!  This lake is special and if you get a chance you need to find out why!