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This is another post from my trip out West! When we headed out to Custer State Park, I didn’t know what they had for hiking, but I knew that I would like to hike, and I knew that I absolutely wanted to find some buffalo!
We decided to drive around the Wildlife loop to find the animals, and would stop at any trail that we happened to find. But first, we saw some buffalo out roaming. Because the buffalo are free to roam wherever they’d like in the park, one of the great things about driving through is that you never know where you’ll find them! The other funny thing- they walk through the cars and can cause quite the traffic jam!
So close to the cars!
Fun fact about me: I LOVE buffalo, and they used to be one of my favorite exhibits at the local zoo when I was little. I absolutely LOVED seeing the buffalo at Custer, and felt that little kid excitement as I took far more pictures than necessary.
They also have several burros that walk around the park, and are very friendly! They loved getting fed and getting pets!
We ended up stumbling along the French Creek trail, and decided to hike it. Unfortunately, there are several creeks that run through the trail, so we decided to hike until we couldn’t go anymore, and then turn around. That ended up being 0.3 of a mile, so we hopped back in the car in search of another place.
We stumbled upon the Peter Norbeck visitor’s center (just to give you an idea of where in the park the trail is!), and asked them for a good hiking trail recommendation. The lady pointed us across the street to a trail called “Lover’s Leap” (listed at three miles- it ended up being four), so we gave it a try!
The trail starts out as a quick uphill climb, and I was huffing and puffing about .3 of a mile into it. It doesn’t seem so bad to be working hard when the views are beautiful though! There was a big forest of pine trees, which smell absolutely delicious, so I was a happy camper as I gasped a bit for air. Somewhere around a mile or so the trail flattened out a bit, and the next mile or mile and a half seemed to be comprised of gentle uphills and downhills. It was beautiful, and we happened to be on the trail alone, so besides our own talking, we heard nothing but nature, which I loved.
Lover’s Leap has an excellent look out point across the forest and hills, so we took a moment to stop and enjoy the view and eat a snack!
I also took a picture of this fantastic sign :
I love everything about this 🙂
And then we were off. As we climbed down the other side of the hill in the Park, we entered an awesome little forest area with a winding creek in it, and to say it was beautiful was an understatement. Every few minutes one of us would say “Oh my gosh- look at how beautiful this is” and we’d stop to enjoy it. Again, pictures don’t remotely do it justice!
Like I said, the trail was listed as 3 miles, but it came out more at 4 miles if you walked back to the parking lot where you start. The last .5 of a mile or so is through camp sites and on the main loop through the park, so you won’t get the beautiful nature area surrounding you, but it’s still great.
If I remember correctly, this hike was listed as “moderate” difficulty and I’d say that’s accurate, at least for the first mile. The rest of the trail isn’t bad at all, but the first mile is steep and a bit more technical. According to my garmin, the elevation gain was 531 feet with a max elevation of just under 4700 feet.
My brother and I both agreed that this is in the top three trails that we hiked up in the South Dakota/Wyoming area, and would top my list of places to hike again if I were to visit again! If you’re in Custer State Park at any point, I would definitely encourage you to hit the trail and enjoy the views and nature around you!
(if you’re interested in other hikes from my trip, check out the Incline on Pikes Peak! More hikes will be posted here in the following weeks!)
Yay buffalo! They have beef-alo on the North Rim of the GC and they’re my fav. Fun fact: we got married on a buffalo reserve!
I would LOVE to go to a buffalo reserve- getting married on one would be a mountain top experience for sure!!
Wow, you were a lot closer to the buffalo than we were!! I can’t believe you were brave enough to get out of the car… but that’s a great picture! Love the burros! 🙂
I was definitely nervous to get out- I ended up leaving the car door open so I could’ve just hopped in if needed. I also kept yelling at my brother “tell me if they move at all towards me!” haha. I wish you could put the babies though!
[…] a lot of the other hikes I did out in Custer, although there were a few parts that felt similar to Lover’s Leap (we hiked Lover’s Leap last year and had hiked it a few days previously to this hike as […]