Bear Butte

Bear Butte is not part of the Black Hills skyline; it stands alone on the prairie northeast of Sturgis, a dark igneous intrusion crowned at 4,426 feet that people have been climbing to pray on for thousands of years. The Lakota call it Mato Paha, the Cheyenne Noahvose, and the state park's own signage names it plainly as a place where the creator communicates through visions and prayer. Crazy Horse is traditionally associated with a vision received here, and the mountain remains a working ceremonial site: vision seekers fast on its slopes, and its trees carry prayer cloths and tobacco ties tied by individual worshipers.

South Dakota's wildlife agency runs Bear Butte as a state park with a modest day fee, and the rules read differently from any other park of its size: alcohol is banned east of the highway, hunting is banned, human ashes may not be scattered because the butte is not a burial site, and visitors are asked to stay on the trail and leave the prayer bundles alone, including not photographing them. The Summit Trail is open from half an hour before sunrise to half an hour after sunset and is the most direct way up, but the point of the place is that the mountain is in use, and the park treats the worshipers, not the hikers, as the primary guests. The nearby Sturgis rally's noise disputes have been litigated for years, and the tension is part of the site's modern story.

Visiting

South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks runs the park: day fees for residents and nonresidents, year-round access, the Summit Trail from before sunrise to after sunset, campsites available.

Photo: [William Neuheisel](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bear_Butte_(6004317764).jpg), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.