Scenic Drives Open for Season
After several months of winter snow closure, two of the most famous stretches of Black Hills scenic roads re-opened to vehicle travel this week. The gates to Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road have both been opened for the season, in hopes that winter is safely behind us.
Needles Highway, also known as South Dakota Hwy 87, snakes between Sylvan Lake and Legion Lake. It gracefully passes through several tunnels and careens around hair-pin turns as it carries travelers past unearthly granite spires and beautiful pine-covered mountains.
The 14 mile route of Needles Highway was plotted out by South Dakota Governor and outdoorsman Peter Norbeck. Norbeck literally planned the road’s entire course by exploring it on foot and by horseback. Engineers told Norbeck that the road couldn’t be built due to the huge granite obstacles along the route. But Norbeck’s drive to succeed (and 75 tons of dynamite) proved them wrong.
Norbeck is also responsible for the design and routing of Iron Mountain Road (US16A). Iron Mountain Road is about 17 miles long and runs from the town of Keystone south into Custer State Park.
It is often called “Pigtail Highway” because of its pigtail-like corkscrew bridges that quickly move travelers up or down the mountain while keeping the impact on the forest to a minimum. Just so he could maintain certain sections of the forest, Norbeck even designed the road so that it splits apart into narrow, single-lane sections that wind through the trees and then merge back together a few hundred yards later.
Iron Mountain Road also features three rock tunnels that perfectly frame the faces of Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The famous faces seen through these tunnels are one of the most popular visitor photo ops in the Black Hills.
Both Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road are part of the aptly named Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway which is hailed world-wide by motorists, bicyclists and motorcycle riders as one of the most beautiful roads on the planet.
These two roads – Needles Highway and Iron Mountain Road – should be on the “Must Do” list for every Black Hills visitor. The combination of natural scenery and man-made engineering feats are hard to beat.
The roads are open. It’s time to go for a drive.
