This was a second relaxed day cycling across the Black Hills. This is a truly lovely area. I would very much like to come back and do some of the hiking trails. 

Hill City is another old gold rush town from the 1880s. It was described as ‘a church at each end and a mile of hell in between’! The churches are still there, but we found the mile in the middle to be full of tourist shops and some nice bars and cafes. The chain saw art was very good.

   
   
This morning we took the road to Mount Rushmore. This had some very steep ups and downs, past Horse Thief Lake. 

   
We soon began to see huge granite outcrops towering over the trees. The area is a bit like Brimham Rocks – but a million times bigger! The road winds through the beautiful forest, up and down in between the outcrops. 

We stopped to watch rock climbers on enormously long and exposed, bolted routes up the granite. The blip on the top of the second photo is a climber reaching the summit.

     
A short distance further on and we realised that the climbing area was, in fact, the back of the granite outcrop of Mount Rushmore itself! We obtained the iconic photos, and some coffee, but quite honestly there was little information and not much to do other than gawp at the very familiar view. The climbers round the back were much more interesting. Just imagine the disappointment if we’d cycled half way across America to see it!

    
   
I managed to find a lovely sequence of back roads leading to Rapid City. More low alpine scenery with alp-like meadows and woods. We had a final, distant view of the presidential heads – centre of the photo below the slyline.

   
Skyline Drive, on the edge of Rapid City, followed a ridge with great views of the town. This was really only half a day’s cycling so, with a rest day tomorrow, we should be in good shape for the longer, flatter days ahead. 20 days and 1784 miles done, 20 days and 2216 miles to go.