Climbing at The Needles in South Dakota

I’m climbing up at The Needles in the Black Hills of western South Dakota for a few days right now. I haven’t been here since 1991 so I had forgotten what a magical place The Needles are and how good the climbing is up the countless spires, pinnacles, buttresses, and walls found here.

The Needles are one of several climbing areas in the Black Hills, along with the formations surrounding Mount Rushmore and its famous four faces as well as the limestone cliffs in Spearfish Canyon. The Needles are simply that—a collection of thin spires poking above the pine forest south of 7,244-foot Harney Peak, the highest mountain in South Dakota and the highest mountain east of the Rocky Mountains.

The granite Needles climbing is excellent—lots of crystals for handholds, coarse smears for friction footholds, cracks and chimneys for hand jams and laybacks, and tiny summits that you straddle with a leg on each side and 100 feet straight down. Climbing just doesn’t get any better but you better have your wits about you because the climbs can get real scary real fast.

Tomorrow we’re back up to crank a few more spires in the Needle’s Eye area and a couple of the classic Ten Pins, then tomorrow night it’s off to Devil’s Tower across the border in Wyoming to climb the classic "Durrance" route first climbed in 1938 by Jack Durrance and Harrison Butterworth for the second ascent of the tower. I’ll write up a full report later.

Photograph top: Bill Springer climbs “Gossamer” (5.7) at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota. Photograph © Stewart M. Green