The Needles.
The Needles, Custer State Park, Custer County, South Dakota, USA

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The Needles.

Locality: The Needles, Custer State Park, Custer County, South Dakota, USA

The view is to the north of highway 87.

This photo has been shown 78 times

Photo added:	22nd Jul 2018
Dimensions:	2000x1500px (3.00 megapixels)
Camera:	KODAK DX7630 ZOOM

Data Identifiers

Mindat Photo ID:	900515 📋 (quote this with any query about this photo)
Long-form Identifier:	mindat:1:4:900515:7 📋
GUID:	e59b5886-4f09-431f-8a77-2c1487ab69da 📋

View Larry Maltby's Photos

Discuss this Photo

PhotosThese are the Cathedral Spires

28th Jun 2023 01:04 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

This nice pic is of the Cathedral Spires. I cannot find an exact place called "Needles" either on the Custer State Park map or in the Roadside Geology Guide. There are many spires along the hairpin turns on The Needles Highway at the current mindat icon location for "Needles", but "Needles Eye" shown near there on the open street map is in the wrong place. It should be here:

43.841646394679984,-103.54571342468263

just west of the Needles Eye Tunnel. This photo: https://www.mindat.org/photo-900895.html

is also of Cathedral Spires.

I dont think "Needles" is a necessary level in the hierarchy of Custer State Park.

28th Jun 2023 17:54 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert

The Needles is an area of distinctive topography that extends a few kilometers to the east from Sylvan Lake. The Needles are a well-known local landmark and are also well known to generations of rock climbers. The Cathedral Spires are a particular subset of the Needles at the eastern end the area. The short Wikipedia article gives a good summary: Needles (Black Hills) - Wikipedia . I don't know how the area would be bounded for Mindat hierarchical purposes, but the map above, drawn by climbing and caving legend Herb Conn (public domain image reproduced in Wikipedia), would be a good start.

Whether it should be at all, I don't know. I don't think it is geologically distinct from the surrounding granite, and as it lies within a protected state park it is not likely to be a source for specimens.

An acquaintance who climbed extensively in the Needles told me once that a key handhold on one climbing route is a large tourmaline crystal sticking out of the rock.

28th Jun 2023 19:05 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

That's a nice map. It seems to me from the map and from seeing the area, that Needles would be the area right along the road from Needle's Eye to the Ten Pins (the latter place where I moved the coordinates to last night and is the area imaged in the upper right of the linked wikipedia page). Sylvan Lake is called out in the title as a separate area (the outcrops there are more blocky). The Cathedral Spires area apparently has its own enlargement, and the use of the term spires seems to separate it as well in my mind. Whether included or not, perhaps it makes sense to move the coordinates to the correct position of the Needle's Eye (as shown near the tunnel on the climbing map, it is wrong on the open street map) as this point is kinda central? This whole arm of the park is very geographically separate from the big rectangle, so maybe Needles should be kept in the hierarchy but as "Needles Highway"?.

Having been a climber for 25 years I could easily see the great potential for routes there, but I wasnt in the area for that reason. Not surprised by the tourmaline hold, but I am certain microcline xls probably offer the most holds! Personally I dont like climbing granite and pegmatite because it is very tough on the fingers and is like a cheese grater if you fall on it. The basalt and quartzite here in the eastern US is much friendlier on the hands but more difficult to smear-grip its smoother surface with shoes where there are no footholds.

29th Jun 2023 00:49 UTCEd Clopton 🌟 Expert

more difficult to smear-grip its smoother surface

Jan Conn, Herb Conn's wife and life-long climbing/caving partner, said that in The Needles you don't need Vibram boots because the lugs are on the rocks.

Jan is a climbing icon in her own right, among other things being the first woman to complete a technical ascent (with Herb) of Devil's Tower nearby in Wyoming. Shortly after that, she and a friend made the first all-female technical ascent when critics suggested that Herb had done all the climbing and just pulled Jan up after him.

Edit: It's been years since I talked with Herb (now deceased) and Jan Conn, and I misremembered the bit about not needing Vibram boots. Now I recall that she was referring to the texture of the calcite crystals covering most of the interior of Jewel Cave, not the granite of The Needles, although it applies equally there, along with Harold's comment on the effects when you fall on them.

28th Jun 2023 20:16 UTCLarry Maltby Expert

Harold,

I agree with Ed. Here is a photo of a guy climbing in the Needles.

Upper left corner.

28th Jun 2023 22:44 UTCJohn W

One of the most popular climbing destinations in the nation. Get a ton of people that come out here and climb. Also, there is very diverse geology out here. Google Maps, Street Maps, etc don't do justice to show everything. I do a lot of rockhounding here in the Hills and one minute I'm in one formation and then the next I find a nice pocket of another formation. Yes most of the mines shown on Mindat for this area are off quite a bit. GPS alone is off out here, especially with tourists trying to find places in their cars. If you want confirmation on localities it's best to talk to a local that knows them and has been there. :-) The Needles are in Custer State Park, not USFS. No collecting in the state park.

29th Jun 2023 00:45 UTCHarold Moritz 🌟 Expert

This USGS map from 1954 places the text "The Needles" in the terrain just south of "Needle Eye". So I am going to place the mindat coordinate marker at the Eye and change the sublocality name to "The Needles".

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ht-bin/tv_browse.pl?id=c05de1ed96bf41ebaf49951f5737ab44

...or I tried to change the name, but if I type "The" in front of "Needles" the locality page edit form thinks I am making a new sublocality! I've had this problem before and dont remember how I resolved it. Help from management?

29th Jun 2023 01:04 UTCKeith Compton 🌟 Manager

Changed to "The Needles"

29th Jun 2023 02:49 UTCLarry Maltby Expert

Harold and Keith,

Here is another map that you may find interesting. It clearly shows the location of the Needles Road in Custer State Park. The entire road is in the park as John W. reported. It is an extension to the northwest including Silvan Lake. Our family first camped on the Beach of Silvan Lake in 1964 and we returned many times after that.

For more information see here:

https://www.mindat.org/article.php/2847/Black+Hills%2C+South+Dakota+and+Wyoming

29th Jun 2023 17:22 UTCJohn W

There is the Black Elk Wilderness Area that borders to the north side of the State Park as well, it's Forest Service but since it's a designated Wilderness Area there is no collecting allowed there either. Just be aware! Also don't try driving wide and/or tall campers/RV's on the Needles Highway, lots of narrow tunnels through the rocks and just about every year some tourist gets stuck in them :-(

and/or

The Needles. The Needles, Custer State Park, Custer County, South Dakota, USA