Black Elk Peak

At 7,244 feet (2,208 m), Black Elk Peak is the highest point in South Dakota and the highest summit in the contiguous United States east of the Rocky Mountains, a granite massif rising from the Black Hills in Custer State Park. The peak was renamed in 2016 from Harney Peak to honor Black Elk, the Oglala Lakota holy man whose visionary accounts were published in the 1932 classic 'Black Elk Speaks' — the summit holds deep spiritual significance in Lakota tradition. The most popular trail, the Harney Peak Trail, covers roughly 4.5 miles through ponderosa pine forest and open granite terrain to the top. A stone fire lookout tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s crowns the summit, offering clear-day views across four states.