Today the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway carves a serpentine 68-mile route through Black Hills National Forest and neighboring Custer State Park. The primary visitor center in the park is named for him as well, as is the Norbeck Wildlife Preserve.

The park, of course, derives its name from fabled Gen. George Armstrong Custer, whose troops in 1874 probed the Black Hills — sacred to the Sioux — and discovered gold. Two years later Custer and his command were wiped out during the Battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana.

Besides its size (it is said to be the largest state park in the Lower 48 states), Custer has other features and amenities that make one think "national park":

• It has four lodges/resorts, owned by the state but managed by a concessionaire.

• The park is open year round. Only one road is closed in winter, the route to the mountaintop Needles, which is then dedicated to cross-country skiing and snowmobiling.

• Within the park are nine campgrounds, with about 350 campsites.

• The park and neighboring Black Hills National Forest and Black Elk Wilderness host a variety of hiking, mountain biking and horseback trails, including routes to the top of South Dakota's highest summit, 7,242-foot Harney Peak.

• The park also has been home to the Black Hills Playhouse since 1946. This year's summer season includes five productions.

• As on Utah's Antelope Island, each fall Custer's sizeable bison herd — 1,450 animals — is rounded up for health checks, branding and culling for an annual auction. An arts festival coincides with the event, to be held this year Sept. 29-Oct. 1.

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Our summer day trip into Custer State Park began to the north in Rapid City. We followed the route toward Mount Rushmore National Memorial Park but turned southeast outside the Western-themed town of Keystone, heading toward the park on U.S. 16A, the Iron Mountain Road — and the Peter Norbeck National Scenic Byway.

The rewards were virtually instantaneous.

The route here includes six narrow tunnels and several remarkable curved "pig-tail" bridges that help the road wind up the pine-forested mountainside. And there are spectacular distant views of Rushmore's Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Then came a placid stop beside Lakota Lake and soon our first glimpse of the area's bison, or buffalo.