Here we are along the Mickelson Bike Trail in South Dakota. It's a 114-mile trail that runs north-south between Deadwood and Edgemont. We rode about 10 miles in the middle of the trail from Hill City to the Crazy Horse Memorial. We're standing on one of the trestle bridges on the trail, which is built on an old railroad bed.
Crazy Horse Memorial was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski at the invitation of Lakota Chief Standing Bear. Below is Ziolkowski's bronze model showing what the completed momument will look like.
Although only the face is done today, one can imagine the vision for this huge memorial. What is hard to imagine without being here is the scale of the project. For example, the entire Mount Rushmore carving would easily fit into Crazy Horse's head. The carving is done by carefully transferring the measurements from the scale model to the mountain, and then blasting away chunks of rock to gradually carve this massive mountain man.
