we begin our two thousand and thirteen sturgis rally at the crazy horse memorial as we begin our two thousand and thirteen sturgis rally road trip we are out at the crazy horse memorial and there's going to be a blast we're going to there's going to be one on one day wednesday and friday at one o'clock and the class is about to take place it's going to be a smaller blast than usual because they have away quite a bit so it's not going to be the hundreds of tons as before they had a little delay but as you can hear from some of the voices lies people are standing nearby trying to get the shot and record it for them so or whatever they're doing one  so as we try to take a closer look at the last area was right in here i am now here with pat dobbs who any of the viewers who have watched the programming before will recognize but again as always thank you for talking to the viewers well thank you t j appreciate the opportunity good to see again good to see you how this makes for you how many how many rallies have you been coming to this is my sixteenth consecutive rally outstanding and june was maybe the seven folks march very good uses a badge for that we we've been having fun coming out here i truly enjoy coming out here and showcasing the progress that you guys have made over the years and especially in the last year it's been amazing so thank you and the thing that you saw today a little bit earlier was a blast down on the three sixty level that's kind of tech talk i suppose for those who aren't aware we're talking three hundred sixty feet below the top of the card head so go ahead and zoom in a little bit while we're talking about that saw at this point they're down there for those people who are aware of surface style mining elsewhere you'll see the horizontal lines they call the bench mentioned benches every twenty feet apart so at this point three hundred sixty feet they're down at the area that will be below the horse's muzzle or nose and forth in the mountain that's the end of the large scale production mining type work that they're going to do right meanwhile earlier this year we talked about it and i've got some more stuff to show you we're going to go on the other side of the transferring the measurements from the models to the mountain to begin the artistic carving on that extended left hand and that works with some of the guys in the climbing gear going over the sides of the mountain happened within the last couple of weeks so that's pretty recent at this point i want to people of you know think that i'm misleading them they haven't started but they're doing the paint work so they know where they're going to end up when when they begin t work well now this this will be the first hour of my sturgis two thousand and thirteen footage so it probably won't be airing until play september to november summer time frame right so i'll be a little while it'll be a little bit and even by now with the by that time period that they're still in that set up phase so i don't know that you're going to i would suggest watching the web cam on the crazy horse website and between six in the morning and nine at night and you're going to start seeing some changes that will begin on the top of that outstretched arm where you were standing and when you go on that will get much so they've done some painting of that outline you saw that in june now they've gone around and on the far side of the mountain and i'm going to get you on that other side and now they've done the whole outline of that hands or you are right that walk in september you're going to be able to see that's where that hands going to go wow so now again ever those that don't know if you guys have created a second hoax march we have a tradition for nearly twenty five years has been spring always the first full weekend in june which is also corresponding with the dedication of the monument that happen june third one hundred forty eight so that's sixty five years ago this year right now coming into september near by custer state park always has the annual roundup of its buffalo herd they've shifted that from what traditionally have been monday to friday this year's that's the twenty seventh that opened up a door in an invitation for other attractions in the area to do something for the visitors who are maybe anticipating well geez i would show up on monday and now  i'm got a free day i don't know what i'm going to do so a crazy horse on sunday monday twenty ninth and thirtieth you have an option you can do one day you can do both days there's no harm no foul for doing it twice it's that hike it's a six point two mile round trip ten k for those  do that and it will take you from the crazy hours visitor center walks you through the woods thanks to our friend the mountain pine beetle you now have new views of the mountain you didn't have before oh and then you get up on top and you it's you in the car face and probably one of the most amazing updated profile photos that you can put on your social media now two things yes what the september folks march yes is now sunday and monday correct as opposed to a saturday and sunday later this year you've got it exactly right so that's kind of interesting i don't know if you know it works for us because we can you know leave out friday and then get back in time for monday wears or stuff like that yes because it's us it's a rat yes yes of that's yeah but so the other question i had for you was about the pine beetles or whatever they might be called whatever part of the country but the ones that have been decimating the forest here are memorial is a certified tree farm it's the largest in the oldest in south dakota private property it's maintained by the nonprofit graz rs memorial foundation this area is surrounded by black hills national forest and the cording to the most recent estimations on what's been going on for the past several years we've probably seen third of a million two acres hit by mountain pine beetles and it's kind of scattered so what you're seeing happen as a result of that of course is you've got the die off ian as you travel you'll see the dead ponderosa pine needles have gone red with the trees that have been dead for three or more years now the needles are dropping and it's just this they call it the great ghost trouble with all of that is it's that kind of drain out material that becomes  literally a lightning rod in summer thunderstorms so the response on the federal lands as well as the private and nonprofit foundation lands is to do what you can to bend the trees you're either thinning the living trees or you're cutting out as much of the dead that you can challenge here in the black hills as well as elsewhere in the various forests is that it's consumer driven in some areas consumers of the opinion that well if it's a mountain pine beetle tree it's somehow not as good that's a myth there's nothing wrong with that tree as far as building material or anything else the one thing that you will notice is that the how the tree interacts with the beetle it leaves behind a slight blue stain within the wood some people find that very attractive others not so much that it's so here the other challenge will be because there are fewer sawmills and operating in the united states the can be more selective as to what size of tree kind of tree what are they going to take and i recently learned that one of the reasons that they are hesitant to take the dead tree is the  nutrients to the tree kill the tree they mature into the the beatles off they go and there's even some debate of do beetles actually fly or do they just catch the prevailing winds and go to the next available tree doesn't matter really how they get there they just move and typically that happens july august time period now we also have a bus coming back past this with the buses doing the buses here a crazy horse are an option for the visitor after they've seen the visitor complex and you have a complex you're but a mile away and it's a wonderful place don't get me wrong but the one disadvantage for the visitor is that you're confined to that flat two dimensional view of the mountain  get on the bus you take that one mile trip up and you can get to the far side of the mountain because this will be sculpture that is all the way in the round again that we're going to be going after them to show you that painted outline of the hand and it also gets you closer so you get an appreciation for just how large this mountain is and how much has happened within might you pointed out all the changes in the last year and then the van that just passed a van rides are available to people who are ressa porters of the crazy horse memorial  are a member of what they call are a grassroots organization and four hundred twenty five dollars per person that is a tax deductible contribution now what happens with that money and you can you can direct this usually  writers who take the trip and you go all the way up to the army which you can do during the march and they can say well i just want it all to go to the mountain carving or you can ask well i'd like a mountain car being in educational programs or you might say you know i like your university so much and it's new and it's helping the native american students i'd like it all to go to this university scholarship ok so you have an option that's pretty cool now the blast that happened behind us yes you're going to have another one on wednesday this is remarkable and on to another one on friday three during a rally weight gain only had one or two one or two and i talked to several of the mountain crew members of separate times and i asked i said i don't recall i've only been that the memorial for just seven years but i do not recall in that time having three schedule blaster and rally week none of the current crew has ever had that many i can never remember that and the other no yeah we're to we're suppose we should be taking a closer look at the blast area where l a is right now so where according to sort of the black spot there were ten of the screen right and what you're looking at on that little white line that goes through the dark spot is the the outline of that horse's head and about twenty to forty feet below that dark areas where the blast was today one thousand two hundred forty one tons largest blast of the year today and that's in that area where there  scale production work in the rough shape being done so and then they can get really serious and start the artistic work ok and real quick was the pine beetles that have been devastating the area and what's going on with that now and well like many of the western states the black hills is under attack from a natural after we get done with this interview don't turn the camera around you know oh i see so see some of that as we get up on top of the arm and you'll see you know you're a black hills national forest as well so we're thinning and trying to break these what also happens is as they mature th they'll leave from one group of trees and they'll go to the next group of trees only their fly or they'll be carried by the winds and what you want to do believe that's right so what you want to do is you want to disrupt that annual cycle right and  the tree is going to die one way or so all of this thins things out improves habitat for wildlife and starts a new cycle with g growth so they're not they're not totally gone we'll just we'll just change a little about well if i can have my camera man actually zoom in what we're going to be looking at is something that early on the first news crew to you are at your brand new within about the last week that drawing that you're seeing on the mountain shows the outline of that extended left arm and hand and hopefully we have something to that at this point and you can see the actual curled fingers and the finger pointing out direct and this completes of the artistic telling of the story of a crazy horse the man and he is asked by a trader at one of the front here forwards has brought in his followers and such like what they were doing first steps on the reservation fifteen years they've carved in the rest of the mountain out of the point of doing the artistic work that is going to feel that he that or you're going to see it happen and if he's intersected a little bit to catch where you can kind of see where the risk you know they've they've stretched it out a little bit so if he's i'm just a little bit cold you'll see wrist area kind of thing correct but all of i mean just in even in just the last two years alone in the sixteen years that i have been coming here you guys have made more strides in getting closer to what dakota multiple billionaire he's done many things throughout the country largely affiliated with health care and a lot of the health care that has to do with research and work with children in this particular case he was also friends of other  financial people who knew ruth and supported the project and they did it in tandem a couple things they got the start of the indian university of north america and that opened in two thousand and ten in a brand new building th houses more than thirty students most of them are native i'm speaking of which has changed much a whole lot because a couple it covered it a few years ago that wrecked and has been there for a while and this is the fourth summer of that program on friday and the ninth we'll have what we call the completion ceremony last year we have thirty two students and students started the program and this is essentially their first full semester at the university or college level freshman completed that hundred percent we're about to have the completion ceremony on friday one hundred percent congratulations thank you that that's the says a lot about the students themselves and their discipline because it isn't in tents eight weeks during the summer months imagine if you can your newly out of high school start out money and actually you think you're going to go in time with friends not necessarily these are a dedicated group of people that had an opportunity through scholarships as well as a provide either money they can write services they can provide equipment they can provide explosives whatever it is will figure out what the most value is a match dollar for dollar up to five million dollars that kicked off and fall of two thousand and seven ring of two thousand and eleven even and and and and any of those yours out there who want to make this journey over the next several years you're going to see major he may not say what he you know because there are certain things that they can't say but my experiences here you're going to see some major changes i can suggest is as you that check in from time to time on the web cam keep a gaping eye on that upper right hand corner because it's going to be up forty one times and what the viewers are looking at from our vantage point there are about looking downward about three hundred feet now as we move pan over this way there are some red lines that you know over here bright and sunny up here is the kind of hard to get everything they begin the work to create the extended left hand in that index finger and it's resting on top of the horse's mane so you're going to see a combination of thing of where you have the detail of the  human hand as it's resting on top of horses here and all of that's going to happen in about the same time so what they've done is they've measured the models that the court talks at down below enlarged in this case probably thirty four times and now you're transferring those reference point put it on the mountain so you know where you're going to be and when you're going to what it's going to look like when you're done speaking of reference points something that we don't always see when we go and the  this kind of crowded but that post right there is one of how many this is one of four fixed measuring and reference points it's all part of the centrally geometry thing of the days of when you were in school and you're working with the x y and z coordinates so in that particular case the post approximates where the fingernail on that pointing left index finger is at bus tours will pull over to the side of the road and stop there is a point that's in directly in front of the mountain at that location and then we have on both either side of the us is where we were just looking at and now we've turned around we've got the face the finish face and because we are up here we also have to wear the hard hats right because it was a blast  and now the again the face it's been done for about fifteen fifteen years thing to think about it and you know for those of us who have grown up with the artwork of mount rushmore and crazy horse strikes it's always been right but in fact crazy horse and this particular stone portrait is only fifty right while the carving itself began sixty five nights ago took a whole lot of time in order to get there but complete it complete and ace and again for those if you've never watched any of this footage before yet to keep in mind we're talking ropes and and pulley system and makeshift ladders to giving get up here and if you ever see any of the photographs you're going to see some of his ten children and i mean children and little children of about six to twelve years old putting blasting dynamite into the hole it was a different time because it was a different time different time and mom and dad were fully trusting and they were responsible children and knew that they were not playing that this was work oh yeah i mean this is just an amazing accomplishment it is and it's a great american story and i'm just i'm just always amazed at it and every chance i get to be on top of being able to stand here i'm hoping that one of these days when it gets even closer to being finished you'll be able to take me on a little tour of it up close and personal i'm really hoping that will have that opportunity because you know i've been i think i've been pretty faithful about covering the things that i've been giving you guys credit and stuff like that and then don't say no but even more importantly message he says i understand but we can't for safety will work on this because what i would really hope that we could for not only was of the individual but by extension your faithful followers if i can get you down to where they're at three hundred sixty from this space we'll have a huge appreciation for just how big big you know as we know by looking at the face and it's a little tough out there on the horizon you understand yeah well than you know than here there's also going to be some inscription on the spin of the plant and korczak essentially tells the story not only of the carbon but of crazy horse the man and  lakota people why this is important the one pause that you're hearing in my voice it's done in english his plan was to do letters three feet tall to get back at the visitor complex and you can take a look at the writing that he has a very compelling story but then you take a look at the mountain and you think about whether it's three feet tall are they big enough this is a very large mountain so now once it has even members of the family go on maybe we have to make this bigger as are enough space on the mountain in order to do all that i think we'd better finish the artwork first and then we'll get to the story so we'll see what happens ok and over at mount rushmore borglum had a similar thought and he wanted to be able to include the inscription so people who came in the future civilization would know what they were looking at and why and that'll be one of those things we'll see how all of that develops it's not impossible but by virtue of the size of the project and what's involved and would they be able to decipher english in the future is that like  private correct it could be corporate donations something up but it's all private money that's right and no government involvement whatsoever none and that's part of the reason why it's taken so long but promises made tribes will tell you that the they were broken or they're still waiting for the federal government to step up and live up to its word and here in the black hills this is one of those areas that dates back to the black hills themselves standing bear decided now if this is going to go this is because the public not only in the united states but the world wants to see and but he also some of that because of course  years past where the original sculpture where it stops right about here actually went down to about the stomach and it was going to be you know that the upper torso upper torso yes and never got all that know and the portland's which is what the family wanted so they didn't create an area for days long term record sold at some point people who wonder about mt rushmore of them becomes a mystery to them there will be information available that talks about the artwork as well as the society that was behind it but here we also have seen a school and at some point there will is going to be a whole university at heck even during some of the plans i've seen there's been an airport set up there too alan coming back to our story that would you know i could be chise was you know obviously this is not a man who had a problem think and not only does he have his university but he was looking at in all future transportation air travel hugely important will bring in an airport of all the various components of his plan it's the airport that makes the actual say well that will be a ways down the road yet she herself is not fully convinced by jesus i'm also not going to take away from the optimism of the future people working on the projects is that ok her herself that's the one single element where she'll go i'm not sure about that ok well with that i think that we'll start heading back down we'll take a look around you know the whole area just so you can kind of get an idea of the devastation the pine but there's brown and then there are the grey and this is our national forest at work as a national forest just to the property here government has not been doing their part in maintaining and keeping the bugs they're getting a couple of still pictures and this is where the and you can see all the brown there wow just areas that's been cleared that's a shame just a shame and then in the far distance there is the parking lot senate's just playing havoc so it's kind of hard to see so for at least for the viewfinder but that's the parking lot where you park an extended parking lot over this way where overflow goes and where we're parked one of those dutch towards the middle of the screen and the welcome center is down here across the highway where the airfield would be if they actually have it as well had to say that we will h we haven't seen one on any of these blocks or marches that we've gone on for some time now and i'm just slowly walking so what i found out is that the mountain crowd is not usually here and now that there's a van coming up he might get scared off i don't know because the van a stopping but he's dirty because he's digging digging up dirt so he's not bugged by the  bugs usually they're not staying around here for so long but they're not and go down we'll go down into the tunnel and lay down there for the shade and a and walk by slowly and they won't move away but i apparently if i or are i might be getting too close so i got a little bit closer than  closest i've ever been and usually further up or on the other side of the mountain curving so well head back down you can spend hours where these pingers are going to be some point the lines that we saw earlier reflect actually the front where those fingers curl around about the age of eighteen and he made  f well look around a little bit more here before you now see the blasted away a lot of that so that circles around to view to the cultural education cent there is so much to see here in fact oh yes this lady here had how much have you seen while here quite a bit very interesting scale what the entire place will look like someday would have to say goodbye to this wonderful monument highly recommend checking it out crazy for the morning dot org a warm thank you to all the staff learn more about the memorial to annual vox marches and many other activities by visiting crazy horse memorial dot org they can also be found on facebook and twitter while in sturgis camping combinations provided by the broken spoke campground learn more about all the entertainment bans and camping at broken spoke campground dot com please visit my archive page at seattle community media dot org slash node slash one two three seven four slash list shows and as always thank you for watching adventure t