Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills

The Black Hills are a range of mountains covered in dark pines in western South Dakota, rising out of the Great Plains. The Lakota peoples consider them sacred, and the region was the scene of a late 19th-century gold rush that left mining towns such as Keystone and Deadwood.

At Mount Rushmore, the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, each about 18 meters tall, were carved into the granite between 1927 and 1941. A few kilometers away, the Crazy Horse memorial, still under construction, honors the Lakota leader with a mountain sculpture that will be much larger.

To the south, Custer State Park has herds of bison, free-roaming burros and winding roads among granite rocks, and Wind Cave National Park protects one of the longest caves in the world. To the east, Badlands National Park displays striped rock walls and spires, in one of the most dramatically different landscapes from the plains.

Rapid City is the gateway to the region, with the airport and bronze statues of the presidents on downtown corners.

This destination brings together 2 cities: Rapid City, Keystone.