Road to Mt. Rushmore

Photographer: Carolyn Oden
Summary Author: Linda Lewis, Jim Foster

I attended the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota this past August and while there took a road trip to Mt. Rushmore. It's difficult to describe the overwhelming number of bikers who make their way to the rally -- between 400,000 and 500,000. The photo above shows a band of bikers on the road to Mt. Rushmore, not far from the entrance to Mt. Rushmore National Park. Landscapes here consist of tablelands and buttes, typically capped by resistant sandstone. Areas of more gentle relief interspersed among the tablelands are comprised mainly of erodible shale and siltstone. Ponderosa pines carpet the slopes in the background. Photo taken on August 5, 2009.