in south dakota we attend the twenty seventh annual two thousand and twelve crazy horse evokes march once again we are out in south dakota at the crazy horse memorial for the twenty seventh annual two thousand and twelve crazy horse opes march and folks march has already begun people have registered usually this area is packed it was so packed so that it started a few minutes early and now i'm going to be playing catch up to my brother who has already be i'm going down the trail so when i start heading down and trying to catch up to i started to come around to one of the corners near the beginning and i saw this huge pile of trees here and then a number of stumps so they've been there a pile way over here and straight back there there's even a huge log pile over this way more debris and as we head over this way but the terrain varies as you go through here six point two kilometers ten mile folks march and it's a beautiful sunny morning but you never know what the weather's going to pull us have to be prepared each year it takes a different route this year some of the terrain is on what appears to be a new logging road or a new road through the place and it's probably all part of the grand plan but we'll find  out as we continue it's going down even further and further which only means we have a long ways to go back up i'm still trying to catch up to brother but this time it's a trail that rode for the most part so far and i saw at least one older woman heading back so it can be a strenuous walk you have to be prepared now along the way there are several checkpoints this is the first checkpoint and the reason for that is to make sure that everybody is accounted for if you don't get marked they don't have a way of keeping track to make sure you're safe and not stuck on the mountain boy they've been doing a lot of their cutting all right continuing on to the next checkpoint and we'll see how much the terrain ch because right now it's logging roads this is something i hadn't seen before talks about lightning strikes within fifteen miles of the mountain and they would shut down the volks march and then how to exit so that's kind of interesting the trails are marked with continuous markers like this to tell you to turn and there are orange ribbons marking the trail along so or continuing now uphill now you get to be careful where you walk because you never know when there's going to be a landmine i mean your way and now we're coming back uphill i'm still trying to catch up to my brother so i'm running a little bit but a lot of these folks some of them have been taking breaks down below because even though it's all a pretty even road this time it's a long way down and a long way back up and i haven't seen the carving yet so we still have a ways to go up turned there is the carving right there i don't think i've ever been and this far off the side know well you timed it just right then so you could do the volks march you betcha that's why i came up this way this time i heard about it and i'm definitely going to well i'm involved in right now but i'll do it again ok and  your lovely wife and what do you think about all the talking i like it other then either steep up or steep down well actually it's for your first time this would probably be a pretty good route because it even though it's steep up and down it's relatively level and you're not dealing with all kinds of terrain because other times sometimes you're dealing with the terrain like right behind you and walking through rocky up right ok well enjoy your first time here thank you and we're going to continue one up this way so i recognize that is part of the parking lot but the route now is going up over this way so as the terrain has changed and it's becoming a little more rocky there have been some people i'm hearing they're waiting for a vehicle to come back so they can be taken down off the mountain so it's not for everybody you have to have proper working shoes or boots and walking sticks hell  we're at another area where we can see a mountain carving and it's clearing out a little bit but it's heading back down the hill it got fresh cow pies and people just barely missing them sometimes and heading down kind of rough material to you can see it online too i don't have a can i know or a cellphone ok so i'm going to you don't have a car do you well i will get to that way and you work your two than my husband works here oh ok he's one of the maintenance man he builds a new buildings ok well maybe you can tell us what's going on with all the clear cutting it is a lot of the bug trees and we finally decided to attack them and  from areas they just have to go in and wipe out the whole area so they're infested them yeah i feel to be almost around like way here is a pretty healthy area but once you get up on top kind of know that you'll see like patches of brown yeah you said you'll find some spots that are really healthy but we're going to do with all the logs some of them they take two hundred developed areas like out on the reservation where they don't have access to to fire wood and don't have money to purchase it so that all be used for like fire was and yeah most of it is because of the fog infestations yes as far as i know that's what they're doing and talk to some of the guys up the trail to the kids that's more of a guy thing of what they do with firewood i just know how to stand in front of the fire and keep warm well we'll let you get back to the straw men are going in for the folks thank you very much and that is a full day in the black hills and we will continue and each of these checkpoints is manned by usually a soccer basketball or high school team locally to raise funds selling candy fruits and things like that and of course there are santa cans along the way to sink a ship for the bathroom of this next part of the trail has been a little rocky it's been a clear path otherwise but an older walking trick or driving trail but looks like we're coming out to one of the main but we're heading up now this is part of a trail that i recall from two years ago and there are people that will take a rest because it is hard on them on the knees and hips but you can see every age group is represented here  got up to the top of the hill and finally found my brother and you doing good i'm enjoying this years i always like to hike my concern is all the trees are cut down well i just found out a bug infested they had to really look like a disease of a lot of money yeah certain down there so well unfortunately it's all disease so they're going to they're probably  sweat like a pig it's a warm beautiful day yeah it's great that why didn't win my sweater which i thought with the keys we're in but it's a good thing to have layers though to you know you never know what the weather's going to be like you are layers are always good we always bring lots of foul weather fair weather different types of clothing just in case and backpack to throw it all in it's taken off so are you ready to does that stuff for that i start over there is still coming up put it that way well we're going to be on a main arterial after we come out down here yeah and there'd be a check point three over there i understand that but the hard part is still coming up  i think he's walking up that road that last we've already had three hundred four hundred yards we've already hit the hard part what the rock you know the way down and the way i was walking behind ninety year old guy hiking up the rocks cruising right behind them and he was just steady like ok i'm either behind a ninety year old or three year old they both go at my pace so i do think we had to do this more often so we got to start tracking where they are around washington oregon idaho and maybe start i know that they're further east to the folks marching i understand that but then their view of crazy horse the face section but also they have a door you're not in the way they have the horses face outlined ready to be carved more and that's getting narrower and n because i can remember when those two years were out more so they've actually done quite a bit so now i got to play catch up to my brother again and continue down oh and this is for some of their laser light show so down one more and i think up another as we continued coming down the hill just as i thought we have custer volleyball at check point three but another shot of the mountain carving arm back down and i'll be coming back up in a minute turns out it's a little bit more and a little bit more down and i'm almost caught up to my brother play catch up to my brother again but we're getting closer up around the corner up there and then we'll be up there so we are edging closer and closer and they also have granola bars and fruits and things like that for sale too so we're almost there we'll have our little piece as we often do at the top and take a look in just a moment  so after nearly an hour and a half we are on top and there are lots of other people up here too it has been more crowded at different times though a lot of they are all diseased and dying black hills are changing a little bit now another year having gone by yes what do you think you know i noticed the trees down below more than i notice how much how much work they've actually done on  a lot of those levels are actually gone now so i think that's that's one thing i've noticed while we'll probably go find two now with again the disease trees and it's it's really uniform and the hike was in the wasn't as bad as it has been in the past year so that must mean you know actually that we've exercise you know last year well actually a lot of the trail was kind of flat was all flat downhill and flat coming back uphill but it was a lot flat it was dusty to yeah because the dirt trail yeah a lot of people that i was i was playing catch up a lot of the time so i was actually i was actually running quite a bit out of some but i also was out of breath up and down hill because i i was figured with the way the roads were i figured if i ran down the hills and kind of ran up the hills i would eventually catch up to you which i did to let figure there'd be a few times in there where you'd probably stop and rest and and i gave these teenage boys a bad time as they were walking by he said well at least we will be grandpa and they were right for senior citizens in front of me and i said there is your goal he grabbed what are you eighteen well some of the youngest ok but it's a beautiful beautiful weekend for it tomorrow sunday june third is the  anniversary of the first to last which was june third one nine hundred forty eight yeah i'll be sixty four that's correct and if you ever ask them when this government involvement because he saw what that did to mount rushmore when he worked on that in the early years in the making thirty early forty's so  once we go down we'll take a look at some of the facility that they've been doing down there and we'll see if we can talk to one of the p r folks and some of the votes march folks saying and i'm going to use one of their big good for them because they want to be the first ones up here and and the only ones up you know and i don't like if you can do that that's great you know you it is it is peaceful and quiet that's for sure so that  right for three dollars and three cans of food for the food drive and so it raises a lot of food for the food drive and a lot of the money and all of those red t shirts are a group from a number of different states that have met here for a relative seventieth birthday celebrating move a little closer so the wind a little stronger coming through here at the tunnel it's a little barrier there and it looks down over where the main entrance is of the memorial there it's basically a road like this all the way back down for us and if you lisa coming up the hill are still making their way to the top so as we were coming down i said sic a closer look at the logs here to see if i could see any damage and this one clearly had something that was i think that was one of his original shacks where you lived for a short time catch back up to him again it's just a beautiful wonderful car and it's actually you can actually see that the tears are even shorter and they have they had been big benchmarks wide enough to move like excavator and stuff like that so they've done quite a bit guy unfortunately i don't have a case so i don't have any special powers about that carvin yeah i have seen quite a few different things going on i noticed that benchmarks are a lot less there are a lot less wider than they had been tell from about what's going on there and it's it's you're looking at that mountain and you're noticing those horizontal lines for the folks who are coin and with surface style mining elsewhere maybe it's cold maybe it's gold whatever it might be similar kind of rock engine irina and rock removal technique and you're coming down and twenty foot steps and there'll be eleven of those and they're measured their coordinates are all based on the zero point at the top of the car face while the very lowest one bench number eleven is three hundred  sixty feet from the top and that's going to reach below the horse's know it's and i've also heard it referred to as the chin or the muzzle at the lower end of the horse's head and that's all the farther they need to see and at this point three hundred  sixty feet the very rough start of that has begun and from this two dimensional view we're at here at the visitor center you don't really get an appreciation that as they went back toward the mountain they had to remove rock anywhere from one hundred fifty to  hundred sixty five feet out from toward us going back and then they'll stop in there trying to leave anywhere from ten to twelve to maybe twenty feet of the cushion as they'll come back later and do more drilling and then that kind of torture work that they do when they created the face so you're right those benches they've been the mountain they're just about done with that rough contour work and the point of all of that is to get ready to now do the finish work on the details that horse's head and it begins at the top up at the extended hand of crazy horse and cart shocks models what we've seen is that index finger on his left hand was out there all by its lonesome twenty seven and a half been able to analyze and determine in the quality of the rock there you could do that but in order to keep it in place you would probably have to drill holes in them bad steel bolts or long steel cables they would prefer were the horse's mane and supports the finger in the hand you still see the finger in the hand so nothing is lost from the artistic vision and the intent in the story telling you come down the head and the it very dramatically tipped at an angle there had the holes all the way through between the horse's chin and the neck that probably won't happen that horse's head will stand more of a straight angle and be asked essential i think of it as a vertical pillar kind of like those pillars that we see in front of our local libraries or county courthouse is there a continuous run doesn't need much in the way of mechanical it holds everything above it and yet you come in and you're expecting well i'm going to see a horse and i'm going to see that writer and what's interesting is korczak in one thousand seven hundred nine in an interview with another media maybe it was i don't  j maybe it was you know not that early that early one nine hundred seventy nine he told the reporter he said the finished product is not going to look as beautiful as my white model that everyone sees on the deck and he says that's because of the rock you set the rocks going to change the plan i know that the nature of the rock change the plan that gets on board one hand on mount rushmore he said but i guarantee you come up that road or you're in an airplane one hundred miles away and you're going to see that horse you're going to see that right or you're going to know it's crazy horse tremendous achievement by the public and the hats off to our benefactor to do any samp important group of a visitors and they help but help pay for the project what happened in december two thousand and seven fast history because i think we've talked about this before retired financier danny sanford out of some falls south dakota looks at the project as a friend of roots he says i'll tell you what i'm going to pledge five million dollars in a matching grant for every dollar that the public gives to crazy horse in the mountain project i'll match they did that in  up to five million did that in million dollar increments completed that five million before december of two thousand and eleven then what it wasn't enough in addition to writing the final million dollar check to crazy horse and edit two and a half million and that wasn't enough the other thing he did is he gave two and a half million in the fall of two thousand and nine so we the funding for the mountain gets the foundation the ability to hire older and associates out of british columbia they are the engineering and geology experts we also have been working with the firm  earth models out of dallas texas has been amazing they've donated a lot of their services what they do is with the laser guided scanning they do the modern full blown highly detailed survey and of course shocks models as well as you're able to do on an aerial trips as well as several visits to the mountain and you also scan the entire mountain you take all those data points and survey and you mash it all together in a computer in three d modeling a little bit like we go to the movie theater now we see our three d cartoons and we all like oh yeah this is real stuff and they take a look at that they consult with the engineers and the geologists and they take a look at the nature of the rock and they say all right in these various places you have maybe some natural fissures that could be of a long term concern what if we maybe change the angle of the horse's ear as an example or we add some horse's mane so we support that hand that's what funding from the public and any sanford has been doing everything that's going on right now is they're testing a new product because the engineers they go oh well remember what korczak told ruth when korczak day thirty years go in one nine hundred eighty two last thing he says is work cast continue on the mountain but please go slow so we get it right and working with the engineers and the geologists they're taking a look at that the experts are being extra conservative and saying how bout we don't do a lot of finished blasting like we did on the face and let's try a newer technology one of the things they're looking at is that expandable mortar think about the stuff you go to your local hardware store and you get the grouting material and you add and you get this mind and you put in your bricks for your fireplace or whatever it is that you're working on at crazyhorse what you can do is after you've drilled your bore holes you mix up the mortar and you fill the holes and then you walk away and this stuff expands in a fairly rapid rate and within about two days depending upon the weather conditions in the mix that you used it's broken that rock without a blast less vibration on the mountain  last potential exam aggravating of maybe some existing fractures and you've still accomplished what you in the public want and that's to finish that mountain some drawbacks among the drawbacks it takes a little bit more time and because of the weather and how that may affect as the rock splits if you want to be working below that area and it hasn't split and fallen away you have to then find something else to do somewhere else because there's the danger that that you could be working below it and suddenly you have rock fragments falling no one wants that but isn't there also a little bit lines the reason you can see those vertical lines is that's the left over of the drill marks and that is very precise explosives engineering mant that dynamite broke off the rock exactly where the driller wanted it to break now and some of the stuff that they've been able to do with the expandable mortar is there's been something of a tendency of going beyond the drill holes not a great deal but just enough to where the drillers are saying we want more time to work with it to understand why it goes beyond the drill holes because we don't want that happening the closer we get to the finish area where we want to be polishing with the torch or however it is that they're going to finish up so you get to see the fingernail and the pointing finger and those kind of artistic detail i know of that just from the last time i was out here a lot has happened we're very close to and like i said that of those benches the referee now there are eleven of those i'm going to call them stairs they're finishing up number nine number ten and they're in to number eleven and we can get you some of the archival footage but what's very interesting i talk to casmir jocasta the foreman of the mountain c his dad completed the entire what ruth calls the silhouette the exterior contour lines of the entire mountain before his death and eighty two most of his work on the lower end has been covered up by the bulldozing in blasting that has occurred since one thousand nine hundred two as they push away that rock on the terri lower levels to expose that rough shape of the horse's head guess who's already been there dad was already there a little bit you're going to see a lot of stuff happening crazy i'm thinking that sometime in the next twenty five years i think there's a good chance it could be that i'm not going to dispute that because i mean with was with denny's money very much wants to see this car being finished nobody on the whole planet wants to see it finished and ritual custody she'll be eighty six years old on june twenty sixth she's been here sixty five years march of this year will be her anniversary now she will tell you she has no way of knowing but you said twenty five years and you're feeling good about it i'm not going to dispute you i'm very optimistic i'm going to be fifty six years we're going to see some pretty cool things happen ok well i want to thank you for taking the time to talk to the viewers and giving a little bit of mention that about what's happening with them out oh we appreciat oh i think it's a wonderful wonderful event we enjoy coming out here even during the sturgis rally it's a beautiful carving and over the last any time but fifteen years that would be an outstanding line because the in that fifteen years what you have seen happen is the completion of the face oh yeah it was twelve years ago and then fifteen years you have seen the subsequent on down the mountain to where they are now approaching being completed in the rough shaping of the horse's head and now the official start of completing the details on the extended hand that's just fifteen years facebook or that's right we are that we have two of them the one that you really want w w w crazyhorse memorial dot org and you friend friend us on facebook check in on the web site if you're not getting the monthly the finger and the head and the leg where it might be and might have to change a little bit and sometimes there's performances over this way and then of course you have your souvenir shop where there is a multi volts march have all your travels become learn more about the two thousand and thirteen books march which always occurs the first weekend in june and the history of the memorial at crazy horse memorial dot org please visit my archive page at seattle community media dot org slash slash one two three seven four slash list shows and as always thank you for watching adventure t