Only have 1 day in eastern south dakota?
You can’t skip visit this hidden gem, Palisades State Park. Around 20 minutes from Sioux Falls, this park is a must visit.
Note: Something about the lighting off the red quartzite made the photos all orangey-red, and nothing could help them. View at your own risk! 🙂
Check in is 4pm, and a super simple process. With the global pandemic, you roll up to the ranger station, a park ranger comes out and takes your name and site number (if you’ve booked in advance) and checks you in and provides a park map. The entire process was probably less than two minutes, and we even needed to pay for a day pass!
Once we got into the park, we opted for setting up our site before heading out for the evening, knowing we would lose daylight if we waited to set up until we got back. Switching from full time tent campers to now glampers with our new (to us) Class C, it took us about 2/3 of the time to set up for the night as it would have if we had to set up a tent. Knowing we unfortunately only had one night at this park, we were off within 20 minutes!
After hearing from my sister that the Sioux Falls falls were a must see, we couldn’t miss it! This was the first thing we checked out once we set up for the night. The falls are in the city of Sioux Falls, so we spent about an hour and a half (round trip) checking them out—definitely worth the time and the stop!
The falls are massive. Definitely much larger and further spread than I would have guessed. And according to Experience Sioux Falls:
“The Falls of the Big Sioux River have been a focus of life in the region throughout history. Native American peoples were the first to visit the falls and bring stories of them to European explorers. They have been the center of recreation and industry since the founding of the city in 1856.”
After checking out the falls, we went back to Palisades State Park because we wanted to have enough daylight left to explore.
This park is so much more beautiful than I remember! I had last visited (also my first visit) around 13 years ago now, where a group of us went rock climbing for the day—we weren’t sightseeing that trip, so everything on this trip felt like I was seeing it for the first time!
Fun Fact from my park brochure: “Geologists estimate the Sioux quartzite spires located in Palisades State Park are 1.2 billion years old.” Whaaaat! My brain can’t even fathom that. How awesome to be able to see and touch and sit on and climb something that old!
We started at the picnic area just past the 1908 Historic Bridge. This area overlooks the rocks and Split Rock Creek that flow through the park. It’s a wide open space to walk and climb around the beautiful rock, have a picnic, go swimming, or sit and observe wildlife. The sun was starting to set around the time we were walking around, which provided a beautiful backdrop to the park.
We spotted a trailhead not far from the picnic area that looked like it followed the creek. Sure enough, it did—an uneven/mildly scambly yet family friendly hike along the river starts at the Split Rock Creek Trail. This is a 1.5 mile trail that hugs the edge of Split Rock Creek and offers stunning views of water and rock face. If you’re lucky, you’ll even see some rock climbers along the way. We ended this hike resting on the most perfect sitting rock. We sat here fir a while in peace. It was nice. The park was pretty quiet for the most part during our stay, so it was especially awesome to be able to watch the sunset above the water without much disruption.
Perfect for those who prefer shorter and easier hikes, Palisades State Park has four hiking trails, three of which are all under .5 miles each. Split Rock Creek Trail is their longest hike at 1.5 miles round trip. This is the perfect park to meander around without an agenda to take in some views and listen to the birds. Such a hidden gem.
After the sun went down, we went back to our campsite to relax and set the RV up and finish organizing everything for the remainder of the trip. This was technically day two of our six week road trip (we are counting our drive and overnight stay at my parent’s house as day one since it was day one of being away from our home in the Cities), but we still didn’t have everything in its place quite yet.
We loved our quick overnight at Palisades State Park and would recommend it for anyone looking for a park with water recreation, rock climbing, short hikes, and a peaceful night’s sleep in a beautiful campground 🙂
Wooooow, what an amazing place it is! I really love hidden gems! In every place I visit, I will take a look not only on the main touristy objects, but also hidden gems!
Stunning photos! I am happy you visited this wonderful place!
Wow, this place looks amazing! I’ll definitely make sure to stop by here if I’m ever in South Dakota! Thank you for sharing!
Nice post. It seems like you really enjoyed the place. The images are really beautiful.