Check Out Mount Rushmore

The adventure

You catch glimpses of it first through the pines on the winding road up from Keystone. Then you walk the Avenue of Flags and the four faces fill the cliff ahead: Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln, pale granite against the Black Hills sky. The scale only really lands when you learn that each nose is around six metres long.

Follow the Presidential Trail towards the base and look up at the drill marks and the scree of granite that was blasted away. Come back after dark in summer, when the lighting ceremony floods the faces with light and the crowd falls quiet. It's a strange, stirring, slightly surreal piece of American theatre, and the pine-covered Black Hills around it are glorious to explore.

Why it’s epic

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum and around 400 workers carved it between 1927 and 1941, and nobody died during the work.
Roughly 90 per cent of the rock was removed with dynamite, some 400,000 tonnes in all.
A sealed Hall of Records, telling the story of the carving, lies in a chamber cut into the rock behind the faces.
The Lakota knew the mountain as the Six Grandfathers, and the Black Hills remain sacred to them.

What it is

Mount Rushmore has the faces of four US presidents carved into the granite, each about 18 metres tall.

How to do it

Fly to Rapid City and drive 30 minutes. The evening lighting ceremony runs in summer.

Top tip

Combine it with Badlands National Park and Custer State Park.

Need to know

Entry to the memorial is free, but there's a parking fee per vehicle.
UK visitors need an approved ESTA before flying to the US.
The evening lighting ceremony runs from late May to September; check times before you go.

Plan this trip

Rough cost: £2,000 to £5,000 per person, including flights from the UK
Time needed: Half a day
Best time to go: May to September
Fly into: RAP airport

Transatlantic flights, a hire car and Black Hills accommodation make up most of the cost.

Make it happen

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Why it’s on my list

Not done yet. If you’ve done it and have tips, tell me about it.