A Trek to the Summit of Black Elk Peak, South Dakota — Video Dispatch

/ / Published in Dispatches from the Road

Once called Harney Peak, the region, sacred to the Lakota people, was renamed in 2016.

Clay hikes to the top of Black Elk Peak in South Dakota and shares a bit of its history. At 7,242 feet the summit is the highest point between the Rocky Mountains in the western U.S. and the Pyrenees Mountains in France. The peak is named for Black Elk (1863 -1950) an Oglala Lakota who was a second cousin to the war leader Crazy Horse. Black Elk is best remembered for his talks with the poet John Neihardt chronicled in the 1932 classic Black Elk Speaks. (Video by Nolan Johnson)

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