Custer, South Dakota's Skywalk Trail

The Great Grunwald Summer 2020 Roadtrip started today. We packed up the car and hit the road headed north into South Dakota. Our first stop was the town of Custer for a picnic lunch and then a hike on the Skywalk Trail. The Skywalk Trail is relatively new. It didn't exist the last summer Noelle and I worked at Wind Cave National Park back in 2009.

We hit the trail not knowing what to expect as far as Rosie's (our new dog) hiking abilities.

It turns out Rosie is a hiking champ.

There were a lot of stairs on the trail and some really steep ones. Rosie was able to conquer most of them.

After a pretty steep climb, we arrived at the first of two overlooks of the town of Custer and the heart of the Black Hills.

We enjoyed the view at the first overlook

and eventually moved on up

to the second, higher overlook. There was a bench just below a set of stairs that led to the high overlook. We relaxed there for a bit

before making the final ascent. The view was nice from the upper overlook.

It also made a nice place to relax before we made the descent back down to the car.