Korczak Ziolkowski was a self-taught sculptor of Polish descent who had gained national recognition by 1947. That is the year when Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear reached out to him with a simple but profound request: to carve a mountain in honor of the Native American people and their heroes.

Standing Bear’s vision resonated deeply with Ziolkowski, and in 1948 Ziolkowski began blasting Thunderhead Mountain with little more than a second-hand jackhammer and iron determination to create a memorial to the legendary Lakota Chief Crazy Horse .

His motivation was never commercial, in fact he turned down ten million dollars in federal funding because he wanted the memorial to remain forever independent — free from government control and true to the Native American spirit it was meant to honor.

He worked for 34 years, largely alone in the early decades, dynamiting and carving through brutal South Dakota winters, raising a family of ten children on the mountain, and pouring every resource he had into the project. When he died in 1982 at the age of 74, he left behind detailed plans and a scale model so that his wife Ruth and their children could carry the work forward — which they have done faithfully ever since.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, just 6 miles north of the town of Custer, off U.S. Highway 16/385 and approximately 17 miles southwest of Mount Rushmore.

The mountain being carved is Thunderhead Mountain, rising within the Black Hills National Forest at an elevation of roughly 6,500 feet. When complete, the sculpture will depict Crazy Horse astride his horse with his left arm outstretched — a pose inspired by his reported response to a taunt from a soldier who asked, “Where are your lands now?” to which he replied, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”

The grounds of the memorial complex contain more than just the sculpting of the mountain.

• The Indian Museum of North America houses one of the most comprehensive collections of Plains Indian art, clothing, weapons, and cultural artifacts on the continent, with pieces representing over 40 Native American nations.
• The Native American Educational and Cultural Center offers visitors the chance to watch Native artisans at work — carving, beading, and weaving — and to engage directly with living traditions rather than merely historical ones.
• The sculptor’s original studio, now preserved on-site, offers a fascinating look into Korczak Ziolkowski’s life and process, including his scale model of the finished memorial.
• An orientation center and theater provide historical and documentary context for first-time visitors.
• An observation deck gives a close-up view of the carving in progress.
• In the evenings during summer months, a spectacular laser light show projected onto the mountain face brings the sculpture to dramatic life under the night sky.

Taken together, the complex not a tourist stop, but rather is a full cultural destination — one that would reward an entire day of unhurried exploration.

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó in Lakota, meaning “His Horse is Crazy”) was born around 1840 in the Black Hills region, the son of an Oglala Lakota holy man. Unlike many chiefs of his era, he never signed a treaty, never allowed himself to be photographed, and refused to live on a government reservation.

He earned his reputation as one of the most brilliant and daring military leaders in Plains Indian history. It was Crazy Horse who, on June 25, 1876, led thousands of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors in a stunning and decisive victory against Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

That battle, however, proved to be the high-water mark of Lakota resistance. The U.S. Army relentlessly pursued the Lakota through the brutal winter of 1876–77, and in May 1877 Crazy Horse surrendered at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, with his starving and exhausted people.

On September 5, 1877 — just months after his surrender — Crazy Horse was bayoneted by a soldier during a confused and disputed confrontation at Fort Robinson and died that night at approximately 37 years of age. He was buried in an unknown location, a final act of privacy in keeping with the man himself.

In death as in life, Crazy Horse remained elusive, unbowed, and entirely his own. His legend has only grown in the century and a half since his death, and today a mountain in his beloved Black Hills is being shaped in his honor.

Hiking Onto the Crazy Horse Memorial

Something that should absolutely be on your to-do list if you’re an active senior is the Crazy Horse Volksmarch. Twice a year, usually in June and again in September, on the Sunday following the Famous Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup, visitors can actually walk up the mountain and stand on Crazy Horse’s outstretched arm.

The Volksmarch is a self-guided event open to walkers of all fitness levels. Admission to the Memorial is waived with a donation of 3 canned foods per hiker. The Black Hills Chapter of the American Volkssport Association‘s fee for the hike is $4 for the hike or $10 if you also want a commemorative cloth patch (cash or check, no credit cards accepted) for each participant regardless of age. Pets are prohibited.

Two routes are available; 5K (3.1 miles round trip) or 10K (6.2 miles round trip) on hilly, rough terrain with some steep inclines. The longer woodlands path is a bit rugged and not suitable for strollers. Both routes reach the same viewing platform on the arm where you’ll be standing at roughly 6,500 feet above sea level with a panoramic and breathtaking view of the South Dakota Black Hills.

My Crazy Horse Memorial Volksmarch Experience

As I wrote in a previous blog post, we attended the Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup on a Friday. Two days after that event, on Sunday, we drove 6 miles north from Custer, South Dakota for the hike onto the Crazy Horse Memorial. After a short wait in the line of cars entering the Memorial we gained admission with the cans of green beans we had procured after our arrival in South Dakota the previous week.

After a short drive to the well-managed parking area, we headed for the trailhead where we each paid our $4 Volksmarch fee and received a card that, at various points along the trail, would receive a mark to “prove” we were on the Volksmarch trail.

From the trailhead, the trail rises about 500 feet up to the mountain and winds through the Black Hills meadows and forests with stunning views of the memorial. The trail eventually meets a vehicle access road that takes you the rest of the way up onto the mountain.

As you approach the memorial, its massive scale becomes more apparent.

Once in a while you will pass some old and apparently abandoned equipment resting in the forest.

The trail through the forest eventually leads to the utility access road that provides access to the ongoing sculpting on the mountain. It is also here that you get your first exposure to how popular this hike is.

Hiking a few minutes on the utility road takes you up Crazy Horse’s left “shoulder” and onto his arm. It is here that the scale of this project truly registers in one’s mind. In fact, all four of the visages on nearby Mount Rushmore would fit inside of Crazy Horse’s head!

Walking out onto the arm with the many other hikers provides impressive views of the memorial and of the surrounding Black Hills.

After experiencing the vistas on top of the arm, you walk back down Crazy Horse’s left shoulder and onto the platform just below the arm, where work on the areas below the arm is taking place.

After our experience on the memorial we joined other hikers on the short walk back down the utility road to the The Indian Museum of North America and the The Native American Educational and Cultural Center where we spent time viewing the artifacts and exhibitions. Along the way, a glance over our shoulders gave us yet another stunning view of the memorial.

As I was walking off of the memorial, I glanced down and saw a box labeled “Free”. Inside were fragments of granite of various sizes that were debris from the blasting and cutting operations that are sculpting the mountain. I picked up a small fragment and took it with me.

When we reached the end of the utility road I saw a tent in which the Black Hills Volkssport Association were providing the final notation on the Volksmarch card that we were issued at the trailhead, proving that we had hiked up the Crazy Horse memorial..

Additionally, they stamped my fragment of blasting debris!

In Conclusion

On its own, the Crazy Horse Memorial is a must-see if you are visiting South Dakota’s Black Hills. If you are attending the annual Buffalo Roundup in September it is well worth extending your stay in the area to be able to enjoy the Volksmarch onto the memorial.

In future years you will from time to time encounter a photo of the Crazy Horse Memorial and be able to exclaim, as I do, “I stood right there, on Crazy Horse’s arm!”