Monte Rushmore

Many postcards of United States have become known for the cinema and today we add one more to the list: the Monte Rushmore. The mountain with the faces carved on it! Surely you remember him from a movie but you don't know who they are or you hardly remember that they are presidents of the country.

Well, the truth is that Mount Rushmore will not be a great international tourism destination but it is locally, and once in a lifetime every American is likely to go or want to visit it. Let's see today what kind of monument it is.

Mount Rushmore

Actually one may think that it is simply a mountain but the mountain has become a monumental sculptural ensemble and in National Monument. In a few more years it will celebrate its first centenary since It was carved between 1927 and 1941.

The mount is located in South Dakota and represents the faces of the big four Presidents of the United States: Washington, Jefferson, Roosvelt and Lincoln. Conclusion faces 18 meters tall and bear the signature of the Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln.

Monument commemorates the 150th anniversary of the nation's birth. Each head is 18 meters tall on average and only the nose is six meters. The eyes are around 3 meters from end to end and to give it a certain life they have a granite column in the pupil, it will be 4 centimeters, which when the sun hits it has a certain brightness and shadow.

At the monument 400 workers participated and the teacher Borglum died in 1941, shortly before finishing the monument, so it was his son who gave the last details while still a teenager. Are you wondering in which movies or TV series Mount Rushmore has appeared? Well in The Legend of the Lost Treasure 2, with Nicholas Cage, Superman II, Mars Attacks, Richie Ricón, Futurama, Family Guy...

Just to know, The United States has had many presidents, but these four are the most important. and they are the ones that appear on the tickets. Who were? Briefly, George Washington was born in 1732 and died in 1799 and led the American Revolution for independence from England. Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743 and died in 1826 and was one of the first writers of the Declaration of Independence and the one who bought Louisiana from France to make the country bigger.

For his part, Theodore Roosvelt was born in 1828 and died in 1919 and led the economic growth of the country at the beginning of the 1809th century, and Abraham Lincoln was born in 1865 and died in XNUMX he was president during the Civil War with the conviction that there should not have been neither a divided state nor slavery.

Visit Mount Rushmore

The mountain open all year round seven days a week except December 25. If the weather is good that day the park and the surroundings open but the building is closed, yes. The memorial and the building are open from 5 am to 9 pm, the Information Center is open from 8 am to 5 pm, the Sculptor's Studio is closed today and the cafeteria is open from 8 am to 6 pm. The illumination of Mount Rushmore is from dusk until 9pm.

Is admission paid to visit Mount Rushmore? Not, but yes to enter the park. The place has a large parking lot that works under concession so you have to pay because it is not public. Trucks, motorcycles, and cars pay $ 10 per unit. Commercial buses pay 50. To visit the place no need to book and overnight parking is not allowed, from one day to the next.

With regard to passes there are some: there is the Annual Pass of National and Federal Parks, Annual Military Pass, senior pass and Child Access Pass. All cover the entrance and in some cases some discount for camps and tours, not the parking.

The times of the year when there are more tourists are in June, July and August, September and October. About three million people visit it per year. The unfortunate thing is that one cannot get there by public transport so there is no choice but to rent a car or go on a tour, much more if we are foreign tourists.

The Information Center is the first stop of all and gives information on how the site works and one can ask about everything. Then there is the Lincoln Borglum Visitor Center, below the Great Terrace. It has two theaters, a museum and a library. A 20-minute film is shown in each room and the story of the sculptor. The Sculptor Center is where the artist worked and has scale models of the monument. In summer there is a 15 minute talk about workers and techniques.

Regarding the activities that can be done beyond making these visits: with two hours available the recommended circuit is the following:

  • Visit the Sculptor's Studio and listen to the 15-minute talk. Then go through the Presidential Trial, 422 steps, with good weather, which allows you to get closer to the sculpture. Close with a coffee and ice cream in the cafeteria and buy a souvenir. With more time you can rent the audio guide which includes narration, music, interviews, sound effects and some original recordings of the sculptors, American Indians and workers. It costs 6 dollars.
  • There is also a Multimedia Tour It costs 8 dollars and includes photos and videos that you can see and listen to on the screen of the device that is given to you and that works like an iPhone or Android mobile and has a GPS map included. Obviously, if you go on certain holidays there are special activities, such as Independence Day.

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