Mountain Biking on the Glacial Drumlin Trail

The last of the 2016 mountain biking layouts was actually the first one we did last year. My son and I rode 15 miles of the Glacial Drumlin trail one morning, and I created four scrapbook layouts for it. 

The papers on these layouts are a combination of papers from the Paper Studios "Murphy's Square" collection mixed with one sheet of paper with trees on it, and one sheet with gears on it. Even though they were not a direct match to the other papers, they were a close enough match and I wanted to bring in a little bit of nature and a little bit of a biking theme into the pages.

I left the photos in chronological order to highlight the different things we saw along the way and the things we stopped to look at. Often I will shuffle the order of photos around to create the best use of space, but these all seemed to work in the order they were taken, so there wasn't too much shuffling. Here are the final 4 layouts:

Thanks for looking! For more mountain biking layouts please click here!

Mountain Biking on the Badger State Trail

The second trail we rode this year as a family was the Badger State Trail. We drove to the trailhead in Belleville, and biked the few miles to the Stewart Tunnel. Several years ago we biked this part of the trail, but enjoyed it so much we decided to go back and do it again.

It is a straight, flat trail that has just a slight uphill grade as you go south. After just a couple of miles you approach the train tunnel. 

The tunnel is dark and a little eerie! Since you can't see the other end of the tunnel when you enter, flashlights are required as is walking your bike through. After the tunnel we continued down the trail a bit, then turned around to bike back to our vehicle, once again going through the tunnel. 

For these layouts, I again used a paper collection called "Murphy's Square" by The Paper Studio. I also used this on the CamRock Trail Page, and continued to use this for additional biking pages. Although it's not necessarily biking or nature themed paper, I liked the little bit rustic look and the colors lend themselves to an outdoorsy page. I've found that biking themed scrapbook supplies can be hard to come by, and it's often just adding little details like the gears that can make it theme specific.

I accented the page with some journaling cards by We R Memory Keepers Grayson Collection, some metal gear embellishments also by The Paper Studio, and some arrows created with paper punches or cut by hand.

Here are the final 4 layouts:

Thanks so much for looking! Our next biking trail is the Glacial Drumlin Trail.

Wildlife Loop Scenic Drive Scrapbook Page

The Wildlife Loop in Cuter State Park is known for it's wildlife viewing, and the day we drove the Loop we saw quite a bit. We drove this loop on our last afternoon in Custer, even though it is recommended to do it in the early morning or evening. There was some rain headed our way in the afternoon and we wanted to get it in while we could. 

Along the road we saw elk, pronghorn, burrows, and bison, and even got stuck in a buffalo jam.

I created 2 layouts for the Wildlife Loop and really just wanted to highlight the animals we saw on the drive.

Thanks for looking! This wraps up the Custer State Park album - please click here to view the entire album!

Sunday Gulch Trail Scrapbook Page

If there is one hike you should definitely do at Custer State Park, it's Sunday Gulch. This trail has it all - rocky climbs, flat easy sections, great views, rocks, water, and woods. It is not a flat hike, but it's not too strenuous either and you'll be rewarded with great scenery and a wonderful experience.

We started our hike to Sunday Gulch late in the day, around 4pm. The trail picks up back behind Sylvan Lake, is a an offshoot of the Sylvan Lake Trail - it is clearly marked with signs, you can't miss it. There are 2 options for hiking Sunday Gulch since it is a loop - you can go either clockwise or counter-clockwise. We choose counter-clockwise (the opposite of what almost everything I read recommended), which saved the rocky gulch part of the trail until the end (we didn't want the kids to get bored after the "fun" part and complain the whole way back.) And we were glad we did, even though we had to hike up the rocks (rather than descending into the gulch) and climb our way out of the gulch, which was a little harder of a hike.

Going the direction we did, we began to climb the mountainside right away - it was a steep climb but steps in the rocks made it a much easier climb. After about 15 minutes of climbing, we reached the top and the views were incredible! By this time we were a ways off the main trail and away from the Sylvan Lake, and you really felt like you were in the wilderness. 

After the overlook, the crowds basically disappeared and we were literally on our own back there for an hour before we saw another family. We were starting to get a little worried since we had not seen anyone in so long, but they assured us that we were on the trail and almost to the gulch. As we continued on, we could begin to hear the sound of water and knew we were getting close. We reached the gulch after 90 minutes of hiking. Since it was August and the water levels were pretty low, it wasn't too wet of a hike and we didn't have any rushing water to contend with.

It took about 30 more minutes to climb the gulch, and the kids loved climbing over the rocks. There is a metal handrail most of the way to help guide you and help you not slip on the wet rocks.

This was such a fun hike and I'm glad we did it in the evening. Most reviews say that this is a very popular hike and can be very busy, but we didn't see anyone else even when we reached the gulch. We finished the hike at about 6pm. This 3 mile hike took us about 2 hours but we did stop often to look around and take photos.

I made 5 layouts for this hike:

If you are ever in Custer and thinking about doing this hike...DO IT! It's great.

Sylvan Lake Trail Scrapbook Page

Our first hike in Custer State Park was the 1 mile loop around Sylvan Lake. This beautiful lake offers amazing scenery and a fun and interesting hike over, around, and through some unique rock formations. 

As you begin the trail, it borders Sylvan Lake which you immediately notice for it's rock formations along the back side of the lake. The rocks seem to hold the lake water in.

As you approach the rocks, you can hop over some stones to an overlook on the lake. Back on the path the other direction, you will go through a narrow rock tunnel.

Once through the tunnel, you are on the back side of the lake and the big rocks, and the path continues over to the other side of the lake, where you can climb up on the rocks and get some amazing views of the lake. We took our best photos of the lake from up here.

As you follow the trail, you'll return back to your starting point by the parking lot and general store. This easy trail took us about an hour to walk, but we also stopped often to climb the rocks and take photos.

I created 5 layouts for this short hike, as it was so picturesque and we enjoyed it so much. 

Thanks for looking!

Needles Highway Scenic Drive Scrapbook Page

Once in Custer State Park, we drove the Needles Highway through part of the park on the way to our hotel. This very famous scenic drive offers some great scenery, and is known for it's attraction the Needles Eye. Our first drive past the Needles Eye was in the afternoon, and the high traffic and lack of parking prevented us from stopping. The next evening we drove the road again, after most of the day traffic was gone, and easily got a spot to park to check out the Needles Eye.

The vertical rock formations in this area are called Needles, and the Needles Eye is a rock formation with a split down the rock so that it looks like a needle standing up.

We looked around at the Needles Eye, and also checked out the Needles Eye Tunnel. Since there was so little traffic that evening, we could walk into the tunnel and take some photos in it. As we drove through the tunnel and came out the other side, there was a family of mountain goats on the side of the road! We stopped and watched them graze for a bit which was really fun as they were the only mountain goats that we saw in Custer.

The Needles Highway is a fun, curvy scenic drive and to reach certain areas of the park it is your only option. It's best to go in the early morning or evening if you want to stop and look around. There are about 6 tight parking spots and a lot of traffic in this area during the day.

I created 3 layouts for the Needles Highway:

Thanks for looking!

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Scrapbook Page

While we were visiting the Badlands, we also visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, which is literally right across the highway from the entrance to the Badlands. This was one of the more complex national sites we have visited, as it is spread out among 3 different locations, and getting tickets for the tour can be tricky. So we got up early and made our way to the visitor center to get in line!

We arrived at 7:30am and the line was already long for tickets for the tour, but when the visitor center opened at 8am we were lucky enough to get a tour later in the afternoon - we were actually the last tour of the day! Each tour only takes 6 people so we got lucky that day! We first toured the visitor center, and my son worked on his Junior Ranger booklet and got his badge. We had about 5 hours until our tour, so we went back into the Badlands again and hiked some more, got lunch, and drove the scenic loop again. We left there and headed over to the first part of the tour, the Missile Silo, and looked at that on our own and then went to the Launch Facility for our guided tour.

Here they took us down into the actual underground Launch Facility and we learned about the missile program during the cold war. Hundreds of these underground bunkers were scattered all over the midwest. We learned about the men who lived and worked here, and got to see the control panel where they would have launched a nuclear missile if the order would have been given. It was a very interesting tour.

I created 3 2-page layouts for this site (one page for each of the sites, and also used the park guide, passport stamps, and a photograph of our tour ticket (we had to hand in the tickets so I always try to take a photo of the ticket beforehand):

For these layouts, I tried to choose papers from the collection that seemed to fit a little better with the theme of the site - stars, arrows, and triangles - they look a little bit like rockets! 

After finishing up the tour, we headed back to Wall, SD, where we stayed for our last night before heading over to Custer State Park.

Mitchell Corn Palace Scrapbook Page

The Mitchell Corn Palace is a very popular roadside attraction when driving through South Dakota. Since we stayed our first night in Mitchell, we drove past the Corn Palace the next morning on our way out of town.

There was hardly anyone there when we stopped (early on a Sunday morning), which made for some nice photos with no crowds. Since we really didn't do anything here other than stop by to look at it, I just made 1 layout for this. I tried to use a lot of gold and brick red to highlight the colors of the building, and added an accent photo of the plaque on the building.