The Travel Channel is featuring America’s national parks this week, and it’s kicking off the series tonight with Mount Rushmore & the Black Hills, which mostly focuses on the parks, monuments and scenic byways in western South Dakota.

The hour-long program is filled with some epic, sweeping video of Rushmore, Custer State Park, the Norbeck Scenic Byway and Wind Cave National Park, including some great wildlife shots. I thought the elk bugling was really impressive, and it’s always neat to see close-ups of buffalo, the largest land animals on the continent. The program spends a little bit of time in Deadwood, tying the gold rush of 1876 in with the history of the Lakota Sioux and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and then to the modern construction of Crazy Horse Memorial near Custer.

The Travel Channel website is dressed up for the evening, too, with a large photo of everyone’s favorite granite presidents and a video showing how Borglum carved Rushmore. There’s some really great historic footage of the workers on the mountain, along with an interview with Mary Ellis Borglum, the sculptor’s daughter.

The show wrapped up a few minutes ago, but it’ll be on again at 11 p.m. MDT (about a half-hour), and likely later this month, too. Check the Travel Channel program schedule if you’re interested.