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Mount Rushmore & Black Hills: Full Day Tour with Two Meals & Show

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Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/17

Duration9h

GroupUp to 160

LanguagesEN

Mobile ticketAccepted

Four Presidents, Two Scenic Tunnels, and a Chuckwagon Supper in One Day

You start with a full cowboy breakfast at Fort Hays, then spend the morning at Mount Rushmore in the best light, drive two scenic highways with tunnels that frame the monument, lunch on buffalo stew inside Custer State Park, tour Crazy Horse Memorial, and finish with a chuckwagon supper and live music show back at the lodge. Everything — meals, entry fees, transport, and the show — is included, and the bus departs at 9am sharp.

Step-by-step itinerary

Check in and get breakfast
Depart for Mount Rushmore
Explore Mount Rushmore
Drive Iron Mountain Road
Lunch at Game Lodge
Drive Needles Highway
Rest stop at Sylvan Lake
Visit Crazy Horse Memorial
Chuckwagon supper and live show

The Experience

The granite faces are already catching the morning light when the bus pulls up to Mount Rushmore, and you've got just over an hour to walk the grounds at your own pace. That timing matters — Gutzon Borglum carved this memorial facing east on purpose, so the stone catches the sun best before noon. You'll see why he chose that angle. After Mount Rushmore, the route takes you down Iron Mountain Road, a 17-mile ribbon of asphalt that winds through tunnels carved so tight the bus barely fits, each one framing the monument perfectly as you drive through. It's the kind of thing you can't replicate from a car rental.

Lunch lands you inside Custer State Park at the Game Lodge, the same building where President Calvin Coolidge spent his summers. The buffalo stew is the thing people remember — rich, slow-cooked, nothing fancy but exactly what tastes right after a morning of walking. Then comes the Needles Highway, a 14-mile drive through granite spires and pine forest so dense it feels like the landscape is closing in around you. The Needles Eye Tunnel is the payoff: the bus squeezes through with inches to spare on each side, and every passenger leans toward the windows. You'll spend about an hour at Crazy Horse Memorial afterward, the mountain carving still in progress after decades of work, then head back to Fort Hays for the evening show.

The Chuckwagon Supper and Live Music Show wraps the day — a Branson-style variety show with songs for all ages, the kind of entertainment that feels like part of the Black Hills experience itself. Mount Rushmore Tours has been running this route since 1973, and it's now second-generation family-owned, which means the pacing and the stops are built on fifty years of knowing what works. The all-you-can-eat cowboy breakfast in the morning sets the tone, and the two meals plus entry fees to all three major sites are already in the price.

What’s included

Your day includes hotel pickup (check-in at Fort Hays between 7:30–7:45am), an all-you-can-eat cowboy breakfast, entry fees to Mount Rushmore National Memorial, a 17-mile drive along Iron Mountain Road with three framed tunnels, lunch at Custer State Park's Game Lodge, a 14-mile scenic drive on Needles Highway with the Needles Eye Tunnel, about an hour at Crazy Horse Memorial, a chuckwagon supper, and a live variety music show in the evening. The air-conditioned bus includes an on-board restroom and a rest stop at Sylvan Lake with coffee.

Good to know

Easy physical levelStroller friendlyPets welcomePublic transport nearbyInfants must sit on laps

Operated by Mount Rushmore Tours

Is this one for you?Pick this tour if you want to see Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and the Black Hills' main scenic drives in one day without renting a car or planning stops yourself — the fixed itinerary and included meals mean you show up and the day unfolds.