Trip Full and Closed
 

$1620
Single Room-add $511(Non-member: $1695)
 

Activity Level:
  90% Easy;
  10% Moderate
    

TOUR INCLUDES:

• Air from your home to the tour starting point and return

• Meals and activities not specified in the itinerary

• Any personal expenses, and any guide/driver gratuities

• You will be responsible for your own airport transfers if you arrive or depart at times or dates other than specified above.

• Transfers are not provided by WTT for early arrival.

Monday, August 11:  Arrive Rapid City, South Dakota; Group Dinner

Fly into Rapid City Airport arriving no later than 4:00pm.  Upon arrival you will be transferred to the hotel where you will be met by the WTT tour leader. The rest of the day is yours until we meet as a group at 6:00pm.  After introductions, we will go to dinner and talk about the upcoming week’s activities. (D)

Tuesday, August 12:  Tour of Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore

We begin today with a drive from Keystone to Crazy Horse Memorial, home of the world’s largest mountain sculpture.  It is a work still in progress and there is no established completion date.  Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began the project in 1948 at the request of Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear to honor the culture, tradition and living heritage of North American Indians. We will visit the Welcome Center, Indian Museum of North America and the American Indian Educational and Cultural Center.  We will stop for lunch (not included) at the monument cafe before driving to Mount Rushmore.

Mount Rushmore is famous for the faces of the four presidents carved on the mountain.  It is a project of colossal proportion, ambition and achievement. It involved the efforts of nearly 400 men and women who had to endure extreme weather conditions and difficult physical challenges.  During the 14 years of construction (1927-1941) not one fatality occurred.  We will visit the Visitor Center and Museum including a film on the presidents and Rushmore carving.  We can join a ranger and walk the first quarter mile of the Presidential Trail to the base of Mount Rushmore and stroll the Avenue of Flags, where each state is represented.  The rest of the day into early evening is free to explore Keystone.  We will return to Mount Rushmore at 9:00pm for the evening lighting ceremony.  (B)

Wednesday, August 13:  Day Tour of Badlands National Park

Today begins with a drive from Keystone to Badlands National Park.  The park consists of nearly 244,000 acres of sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles and spires blended with the largest, protected mixed grass prairie in the United States.  We will begin at the visitor center that houses the museum and exhibits and then have lunch.  A drive along the Badlands Loop Road offers spectacular scenery with scenic overlooks and signs explaining some of what you see. Bring your binoculars! You may spy bison or pronghorn antelope grazing, or spot a coyote stalking rodents, or perhaps catch a glimpse of bighorn sheep.  The Park is the site of the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret, the most endangered land mammal in North America and contains the world's richest fossil beds, dating back 23 to 35 million years.  After a very special day in the Park, we will return to Keystone where the evening will be free for personal activities.   (B, L)

Thursday, August 14:  Custer State Park

Custer State Park is in the Black Hills and encompasses 71,000 acres of spectacular terrain and an abundance of wildlife.  It is home to the world's largest free-roaming buffalo herd.  On our drive into the park from Keystone, we will follow parts of the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway.  It is one of the most scenic roads in the Black Hills with views that include Mount Rushmore and distant prairie.  It passes over bridges and trestles and goes through several narrow tunnels.  We then arrive at State Game Lodge for a Buffalo Safari Jeep Tour.  Our next stop is our home for the next 2 days - the Sylvan Lake Lodge.  After a picnic lunch by the lake, the rest of the day is yours to enjoy.  You might take an easy 1 hour hike around Sylvan Lake, or take a paddleboat, or just relax at such a beautiful place.   (B, L)

Friday, August 15:  Wind Cave National Park and Mammoth Dig Site

Our first stop of the day is Wind Cave, one of the world's longest and most complex caves.  We will start at the Visitor Center and then take a tour of the cave.  Our 1-hour tour is their least strenuous (it enters and leaves the cave by elevator with 150 steps along the tour route) and is a wonderful sample of what Wind Cave is all about.  Small amounts of all of the beautiful cave formations - boxwork, cave popcorn, and flowstone - are seen along this ¼-mile trail.  After our tour, we will drive to Hot Springs for a lunch break.  Hot Springs became famous in the 1880's because of their underground springs.  Many historic buildings were constructed from local sandstone in pink, red and buff colors. 

After lunch we go on the hunt for a Wooly Mammoth.  Actually it's a visit to an excavation site with a remarkable concentration of 51 mammoth skeletons.  After a 30 minute guided tour, we can stroll the sidewalks of the dig area,  explore the many exhibits in the Ice Age Exhibit Hall and peek in the windows of a working paleontology laboratory plus view numerous short educational films on geology and Mammoth Site history.   We will have our farewell dinner in Custer, South Dakota and spend the night at Sylvan Lake Lodge. (B, D)

Saturday, August 16 -  Return Home

We will depart Sylvan Lake Lodge at 8:00am for the airport.  Make your own return flight no earlier than 11:30am.  Transfers will be provided to the airport as a group.  (B)