The boy, maybe 6, had just arrived with his family in time to hear about the 1 p.m. Fourth of July blast on the Crazy Horse Memorial mountain carving.
The Washington bust, at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, was perfectly safe.
So was the stone portrait of legendary Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, some 300 feet above the blast zone.
Despite rain and wisps of fog, the visibility cleared in time for Crazy Horse visitors to see the 1,500-ton blast. It was the latest in the engineered explosions that are roughly shaping the 219-foot high horse’s head.
Crazy Horse Memorial will help the nation celebrate its 234th birthday with a 1 p.m. Fourth of July blast on the world’s largest mountain carving in progress.
Sunday’s blast will remove 1,500 tons in an area 300 feet below the top of Crazy Horse’s head. Please watch our webcams if you cannot attend in person.
This will be the latest engineered explosions that are roughly shaping the colossal horse’s head. At 219 feet tall, it will be the monument’s largest artistic detail.
Overall, the Crazy Horse Memorial carving will be 641 feet long and 563 feet high when completed.
The new school/dormitory building that is currently undergoing construction is in the foreground. What is really cool is how long the sound of the blast takes to get to the camera!
Here is video showing the beginnings of the building that will become Crazy Horse Memorial’s student living & learning center! (Video shot & edited by Mike Morgan)
Winter 2009-2010 flipped from record cold in October to being unseasonably warm in November. The change enabled our mountain crew to continue making significant strides in roughing out the colossal horse’s head. And whether warm or cold, the weather has not deflated the holiday spirit here. Special thanks go out to: Anne Z-Christensen and the maintenance crew for setting up these decorations, Mike Morgan for taking and editing the video and finally Chip Davis, founder of Mannheim Steamroller for letting us use his music as the soundtrack!
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South Dakota is home to the world’s only two mountain carvings; Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial attract millions of visitors each year. Officials from those tourist attractions are now teaming up in hopes of increasing traffic at both sites.
The four Presidents are no doubt the Black Hills’ most famous faces, but just 17 miles away, there’s another mountain carving that represents the Native American heritage of the region. While you may think the tourist attractions compete for business, they’ve actually teamed up.
“Each of the memorials tells a part of history and both sides need to be told,” Ruth Ziolkowski at Crazy Horse said.
To help visitors learn both sides, staff members at Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse are handing out the same rack card, promoting both attractions, aptly titled ‘Facing History.’ The proximity and likeness of the sites made the collaboration an obvious choice.
“There are no other places in this country where there are two other memorials of this scale so close together,” Nav Singh at Mt. Rushmore said.
Around 3 million people come to see the famous faces each year; three times as many visitors than at Crazy Horse. Officials say this type of cross promotion will help increase traffic at both places.
“It’s going to help everybody because what’s the only thing that South Dakota has that nobody else has? That’s two mountain carvings. And that will help the entire state, it really will,” Ziolkowski said.
Helping attract more tourists to both mountains by reminding them of how close they are.
