“The Cathedral Spires” These are very pronounced rock formations along the Needles highway. I used these small evergreen trees growing out of a crack in this large rock as a foreground subject in this image at sunrise.

One heck of a small opening to drive your car through on the Needles highway. Not much room on each side to squeeze through. If somebody is coming from the other way, one has to back out!

Sheila Bruner & I taking a photo among these rock formations along the Needles highway.

“The Needles Eye” You can see why this rock formation is called the above.

Some very interesting clump of rock formations near the top of the Needles highway in South Dakota.

On the second leg of their recent eight-day trip, Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, stayed in Custer, S.D., and spent time on the Needles Highway. A spectacular 14-mile drive through pine and spruce forests, meadows surrounded by birch and aspen, rugged granite mountains, sharp curves and low tunnels, the road gets its name comes from the needlelike granite formations that seem to pierce the horizon along the highway. Deemed “impossible” to construct by its critics, Needles Highway — a National Scenic Byway — passes through Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park.