Beautiful day to hike Black Elk’s Peak! Some of us were woken up at 4:30-5am to watch the sunrise on top of a rock. It was a wonderful spectacle as mountains to our right were covered in fog, resembling islands on a sea of white. We waited for the sun to emerge, bathing the purple and orange sky and its observers with its light and warmth. A wonderful way to wake up!
After that, we got ready and off we went to the Black Elk Peak hike. The hike was quite challenging, since half of it was on an ascent and personally it was a bit of a fast pace (a combination of keeping up with a marathon runner + having short legs). It was a beautiful trail, nonetheless, and the peak was amazing, with a majestic view and a deep history.
Before we went, Dr. Gulezian told us about the geology of the site, and I’ll try to recollect here to the best of my abilities, but I may falter or mix up some details. Bear with me! Some of the mountains on the Black Hills are considered the oldest ones in North America, being about 2 billion years old. THey were formed by intrusive igneous rock that was pushed up while molten material cooled down and solidified below it. All (or most of) the sedimentary rocks on top were weathered and eroded, until only granite was left basically. The main constituents of granite are quarts (6 sides, with pyramidal ends), feldspar (with color variation based on the amount of calcium, sodium and potassium - CaNaK!) and mica (thin sheet or flakes, often sparkly). Moreover, the Black Elk Peak has been used for hundreds (if not thousands) of years as a sacred ceremonial site for the Lakota people. It has a sad and bloody history, where the peak, originally called “Owl Maker,” was renamed “Harney Peak” to honor the General who massacred men, women and children of the Sioux people after a single misdemeanor. After about 50 years of fighting, the peak was renamed to “Black Elk Peak” to honor the Lakota Sioux medicine man whose wilderness area is named after. That only happened on August 2016, and the people from Custer, SD, still resist to adopt the new just name.
This piece of history made me think about the concept of indigeneity. What does it mean to be native? Who gets to claim a piece of land? I feel that most people now on the age of technology live with a lingering and underlying sense of not belonging, as if they’re all just passing by a piece of land and Earth itself. On the other hand, indigeneity describes the sense of truly relating and understanding other beings around the land itself, truly belonging to wherever you are and being a part of the cycle. In this case, even though I still have my regards about a person or a group claiming a mountain, I feel that the Lakota Sioux people do have a deeper and much more ancient connection to the peak we’ve visited.
Now, back to today’s hike, we’ve found a plant that I thought was very intriguing for being so inconspicuous, yet so dangerous. The Elegant Death Camas (AKA Death Lily), or Zigadenus elegans, from the Lily family, was on various spots of the trail, especially on the areas below the treeline, where it was shaded and moist.
I chose this plant because I found interesting the “relationship” it has with another plant that was very abundant throughout the trail - yarrow. It felt as if we had death on one side and life on the other, and only through knowledge we get to know which is which. As you never know in which situation you might find yourself in, any and every piece of knowledge is essential to live.
It had lots of ants on it, so maybe they don’t get affected by the alkaloid? I’m not sure, though, if they were helping or getting food the plant, as they were mainly on the peduncle, and not the petals.
Journal entry by Deborah
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