Crazy Horse Memorial is supposedly the Native American answer to Mt Rushmore. It's been in progress since 1948 but there isn't a whole lot done. We discovered why when the visitor center showed photos of the workers - one white guy and his family including his little kids. Apparently the government has offered millions of dollars in funding on multiple occasions, which has been turned down. The current estimated completion date is 2120.
The whole place was rather bizarre. The strangest part was the steep entry fee of $10 per person that only allowed you entry into the visitor center - there were further fees to be taken by bus to the base of the actual monument. To put it into context, Mt Rushmore carpark cost $10 for the car, and the national and state parks that we visited cost $10 each for the car as well. Visiting Crazy Horse felt like a rip off even before we saw that you had to pay more to get close to the monument.
A small model of what the memorial is supposed to eventually look like.
What the memorial looks like now from our paid vantage point (we didn't want to pay the extra to go closer). They've carved his face and the top of his arm. I don't recommend visiting Crazy Horse - there are too many things that don't add up in the monument's story and the visit left me feeling ripped off.
After Crazy Horse, we thought we'd take a detour to nearby Wyoming State to visit the Devil's Tower, which is the solidified core of an ancient volcano. It's about 400m tall and looks pretty bizarre in the context of the landscape. Devil's Tower was the first US National Monument, established in 1906.
From a little closer. The Native Americans call it Bear Lodge, and their story goes that a group of little girls were playing when some giant bears spotted them and chased them. The girls climbed onto a nearby rock and prayed to their Great Spirit who made the rock rise up so that the bears couldn't reach them. The deep channels in the side of the mountain were made by the bear's claws.
The base of the tower is a sea of boulders bigger than a person, fallen off in the past. That's me, in the white jacket, for a size comparison.
Apparently the tower is very popular with rock climbers. There were two making the climb while we were there. Here's a close up that shows them both - the guy in the orange jacket is the lower one, and there's also a girl above him and to the left a little in a green jacket. The sound carried back from the rock so we could hear them yelling to each other from the base of the monument with ease.
Not the view from the top (I'm not that crazy or skilled), but the view from the base of some of the surrounding land.
Stephen somehow managed to randomly snap a picture at the perfect time when the sun was setting and the light turned the tower pink and orange. 30 seconds later when he tried to take another photo, the rock was grey.
There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 4. You can also read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 5.
The whole place was rather bizarre. The strangest part was the steep entry fee of $10 per person that only allowed you entry into the visitor center - there were further fees to be taken by bus to the base of the actual monument. To put it into context, Mt Rushmore carpark cost $10 for the car, and the national and state parks that we visited cost $10 each for the car as well. Visiting Crazy Horse felt like a rip off even before we saw that you had to pay more to get close to the monument.
There are 5 parts to this series - this is part 4. You can also read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 5.
Crazy Horse is a bit bizarre. It's intended to be a Native American version of Mount Rushmore, but the original guy doing it (IIRC) was Polish or Eastern European, and the Native Americans in the area actually don't want him to do it.
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