Guided Climbing in Custer State Park, South Dakota

Climbing in Custer State Park was one of the highlights of our visit to South Dakota. We wanted to try some technical multi-pitch climbs but were just getting started with this as a couple so guided climbing seemed the way to go.

Over the course of a day with a guide from Sylvan Rocks, we learned a lot and gained confidence needed to do these routes again on our own and try other routes around the park.

We can highly recommend that you go rock climbing in Custer State Park. From spires to multi-pitch routes, discover epic climbs, breathtaking views, and why we think this park rivals Joshua Tree.

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Our Guide to Climbing in Custer State Park

We found Sylvan Rocks Climbing School & Guide Service by searching online and decided to book a day with them. We were fortunate enough to climb with the owner of Sylvan Rocks, who made this a fantastic day of climbing and a really worthwhile experience.

We met up at the parking lot of the Sylvan Lake General Store at Custer State Park. There were several other groups of people, mostly families, that were also waiting for their guided climbs that day so it was a little bit of mad house when we first arrived. After getting all of the obligatory paperwork out of the way, we were off! 

The Aquarium

The first climb of the day was a rock spire called the Aquarium. I’m really not sure why it’s called that, but it was a very nice 3 pitch route, about 120 feet tall, with a rappel off of the back side of it when you’re done.

The rock here is granite. It was pretty nubby and had a lot of texture so it gave us lots of options for hand and footholds but it was also kind of abrasive or sharp in places. This was different than some other climbing we’d done like on the sandstone slabs at Peshastin Pinnacles State Park for example.

We actually did it in 2 pitches, but we accidentally left our camera at the bottom with our backpack! At this point I’m sure you’re thinking “gee, all of this talk and no pictures makes for a pretty sucky post…” So, we came back a couple of days later and did the same route again with just the two of us and our camera!

We started by talking through the route and then tying in at the first pitch.

At the top of the first pitch we could see a glimpse of Sylvan Lake.

On the summit we had a great view of the lake and the trail all the way around it.

We could see where we had parked our car and all the people down below at the General Store.

We ended with rappel off of the backside and pulling the rope down after rappelling.

Cathedral Spire #4

After we were back on the ground and our guide had a decent idea of what we were capable of, we opted to head down the road to the Cathedral Spires and climb the tallest of them: Spire #4. This is actually a pretty easy climb, just a bit longer. The views from the top are spectacular.

The next two pictures are from top of the first pitch of Cathedral Spire #4.

Our guide then led the way up the second pitch.

In the next picture you can see me coming up the second pitch. Where you can see Christine’s feet, that is only about half way up it.

At the top of the second pitch was a small hole you had to climb through called the wormhole. It’s tight enough that we had to wriggle through it. It was a little reminiscent of the caving we’ve done in the past, just without the mud.

The final pitch to the summit requires a little bit of a leap of faith. You stand on the top of a sub-spire and have to stretch yourself across to the adjacent one:

Finally, we reached the summit! Here we rested for a bit, enjoyed the views, and signed the summit register.

In the second picture, if you look in the distance in the middle of the picture, there is a blocky looking mountain. That’s the backside of Mt. Rushmore. We thought it was really neat to see Mount Rushmore from this angle, since we had been able to see it from the front on another day.

We then began our decent. Here we are rappelling off the second pitch and then standing together on the belay ledge above the first pitch right before we finished our decent.

And to finish off our climb, we took a nice shot of the all of the Cathedral Spires from the parking lot. Spire 4 is the tallest one, just right of center left:

Would We Choose A Guided Climb Again?

That finished up our day with the guide climbing in Custer State Park. I’d like to think that Christine and I know our limits pretty well and like to play it safe with stuff like this. At the time we were still a little new to placing our own protection during a climb.

Going with the guide service for our first day out gave us an opportunity to pick the brain of someone who knows multi-pitch trad climbing and the area really well. We learned just as much from doing the actual climbing as well as all the additional questions we asked our guide, which he was a really good sport about!

It also gave us a good feel for what to expect while climbing in this area so we could go on and do these and other climbs ourselves confidently. In the same situation we’d absolutely choose to do a guided climb again.

If you’d also like to try a guided climb, we’d highly recommend climbing in Custer State Park. We think we even enjoyed it more than rock climbing in Joshua Tree!