Black Hills Petrified Forest.

Today we visited the Black Hills Petrified Forest and drove through Sturgis to stop at Bear Butte State Park. The petrified forest is located on private property and we paid $10.00 for both of us to visit; this included an informative video about the geological history of the Black Hills region, a museum, and a well done trail map for the walk through the forest. We also paid $6.00 to enter the State Park where we didn’t spend much time and should have saved the money.

The Petrified Forest visit started with a visit to the gift shop to purchase our tickets and see the video, the museum is also in the same building but it was thundering so we headed outside to see the forest before it rained; they supplied us with umbrellas but luckily we didn’t need them.

 

 

Looking across the valley from the petrified forest.

 

Erosion has exposed the petrified wood but some pieces (like these), are still attached to the sandstone rock.

 

Other pieces were found elsewhere and moved to this spot.

 

It looks like you could throw this piece into the fire and it would burn.

 

This piece has worm damage, no petrified worm.

 

Looks like wood instead of rock.

 

This is the tallest standing piece found in the forest.

 

This is the largest piece found, it weighs about 4.5 tons.

 

This tree was broken into sections by the geological upheaval of the dome of rock that raised the region; erosion then formed the Black Hills and exposed the Petrified Forest. This tree arches around both of the living trees standing in the background.

 

A woodpile for the fireplace? This is all petrified wood collected in the forest.

 

This is a portion of a petrified Cabbage Palm.

 

Sandy tries out the petrified chair.

 

There is more of the forest waiting to be exposed.

 

 

After our tour of the petrified forest we walked through the rock shop and then toured the museum. The museum contains geological information and a large amount of fossils and petrified wood. We didn’t spend a lot of time inside, we browsed and then left for Sturgis.

 

Inside the museum there was a collection of petrified kindling.

 

A petrified turtle.

 

Another turtle.

 

Bear Butte is not a Butte, it is another product of the erosion that formed the entire Black Hills and Badlands region. We drove up to the educational center and parked to eat our lunch. There is a trail that goes to the summit but it was now pretty hot and we were not dressed for a strenuous climb (the information says to allow 2 hours for the trail). We walked up for about 15 minutes to get an idea of the view that the summit might offer before we started back to Chris’ Camp to check on our buddy KoKo.

 

Bear Butte.

 

The trail weaves up this portion of the Butte.

 

The view from very low on Bear Butte.

 

There is a small herd of Bison in the park, traffic stops when they decide to cross the road.

 

In Sturgis, the Full Throttle Saloon is getting ready for the motorcycle rally in early August.