Alright, so today I wanted to share a little something I looked into recently. It’s not ground-breaking science or anything, just one of those things you get curious about, and I thought I’d walk you through how I found out. The topic was the elevation of Mount Rushmore out in South Dakota.
It all started when I was flipping through an old travel magazine, you know, the kind with glossy pictures of amazing places. There was this stunning shot of Mount Rushmore, and it got me wondering, just how high up are those famous faces, really? I mean, you see the pictures, and it looks massive, but "massive" doesn't give you a number.
So, my first thought was to just, well, guess. I figured it had to be a few thousand feet, being a mountain and all. But guessing isn't really knowing, is it? I wanted a solid figure. I set aside the magazine and decided to do a little digging. My old encyclopedia set is long gone – donated it years ago – so the computer was my go-to tool for this little quest.
I sat down and typed in something simple like "Mount Rushmore elevation" into the search bar. You know how it is, you get a flood of results. Lots of tourist information, travel guides, pretty pictures, which was nice, but I was on a mission for that specific number. I saw some articles talking about the height of the sculptures themselves – like each president's head being about 60 feet tall. That’s impressive, for sure, but that wasn't the elevation of the mountain itself.
I had to sift through a few pages. Some sites mentioned the elevation of the visitor center, or the nearby town of Keystone. Close, but not quite what I was after. I wanted to know the height at the top, where the carvings are. I figured the official National Park Service site might have it, or maybe some geological survey data, but I wanted to see if I could find it on more general informational sites first.
After a bit more clicking, I started seeing a consistent number pop up across a few different sources that seemed reasonably trustworthy. It’s always good to see a few places agreeing on a fact like that, makes you feel a bit more confident. It wasn’t like I was writing a scientific paper, but still, I like to get things right, even for my own curiosity.
And there it was. Most sources put the summit elevation of Mount Rushmore, where those incredible carvings are located, at around 5,725 feet (which is about 1,745 meters, for those who prefer metric). That's pretty substantial! Definitely not just a little hill. It really puts the whole engineering and artistic feat into perspective, working at that altitude.
So, that was my little journey to find out the elevation. It wasn't a complicated process, mostly just a bit of patient searching and sifting through information. But it was satisfying to get a clear answer. It’s interesting how a simple question can lead you down a little path of discovery. And now, when I see pictures of Mount Rushmore, I have a much better appreciation for just how high up those iconic faces are, looking out over the Black Hills of South Dakota. Just a small piece of practical knowledge I picked up and thought I'd share.
