Contact Information
RR 2, Box 200
Custer, SD 57730
605-673-2251
Seen from a distance, the Black Hills, rising several thousand feet like sentinels above the surrounding prairie, do appear to be black. But enter these hills and a world of color and variety unfolds. The Black Hills cover an area 125 miles long and 69 wide in western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming. They include rugged rock formations, canyons and gulches, open grassland parks, tumbling streams, deep lakes, and caves. Trees and plants from the Rocky Mountains, eastern woodlands, northern forests, and the Great Plains converge at this biological crossroads. The forest cover and forage sustain a wide variety of birds and four-legged animals, including elk, deer, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. These mountains have power, or, as South Dakota conservationist Peter Norbeck says, value beyond gold. For many people, from past and present Native Americans to today's visitors, the Black Hills have been a special place for physical and spiritual renewal. Paha Sapa. Lakota Sioux for hills that are black. But that's the surface translation. The deeper translation is the heart of everything that is.
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