South Dakota tunnel! Needles Eye Tunnel narrow one-lane road?! What’s it like driving through Needles Eye Tunnel? ⛰ Black Hills, South Dakota travel blog

Hi there!

The most popular tunnel in Custer State Park is the Needles Eye Tunnel.

This is an iconic tunnel in South Dakota and one to add to your drive as a part of your road trip through the Black Hills!

And aside from the “needles” (the rock formations of the Black Hills) that you will see, what makes the Needles Highway most famous is a narrow tunnel that you can drive through.

This is called the Needles Eye Tunnel.

I spent several days at Custer State Park and I’ll show you below how to make the Needles Eye Tunnel a part of your time in the Black Hills of South Dakota!

The Needles Eye Tunnel is one of the tunnels that you can drive through on the Needles Highway.

The Needles Eye Tunnel is the famous Needles Highway tunnel.

This is the tunnel that’s next to the famous rock formation called the Needles Eye.

If you look at it from the right direction, you can see the “eye” of this “needle.”

Which direction to drive through Needles Eye Tunnel?

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While the Needles Eye Tunnel can only accommodate traffic going in one way at a time, you can drive it in both directions. You just may need to wait until opposing traffic finishes up coming out of the tunnel!

It probably doesn’t matter too much which direction you drive the Needles Highway to get to the Needles Eye tunnel.

That said, I drove the Needles Highway (aka SD-87) from south to north. (Or east to west, depending on your perspective.)

Driving it in this direction basically means that Sylvan Lake, the most popular of the Custer State Park lakes, can be your “destination” instead of your starting point.

👆 Map of driving to the Needles Eye Tunnel from Legion Lake. If you start driving from here, it will take around 35 minutes to get to Needles Eye Tunnel. From Legion Lake, you’ll head east to get onto Highway 87 aka Needles Highway! Explore the map. Explore more things to do in Custer State Park! Explore more places to visit in South Dakota!

I liked it in this direction because it felt like the “needles” and the Black Hills landscape kept getting more and more dramatic. And then, driving through the Needles Eye tunnel and seeing the needles eye rock was like the grand finale!

If you drive the Needles Highway from south to north, the the tall needles eye rock formation will appear after you drive through the Needles Eye tunnel.

Okay, it wasn’t exactly the grand finale, as there’s still more Black Hills rock formations to be seen as you keep driving. 😜

The Little Devils Tower trailhead is afterwards, and so is Sylvan Lake.

But I did feel like there was a progression in driving the Needles Highway from south to north!

That said, I’m sure it will be exciting no matter which direction you’re driving it. (If you get excited about this sort of thing.)

For more to do along Needles Highway (and beyond), see the best hikes in Custer State Park.

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How wide and how tall is the Needles Eye Tunnel?

The needles eye tunnel is a low narrow tunnel!

According to the road sign posted right before entering the Needles Eye Tunnel, the width of the tunnel is 8 feet wide and the height of the tunnel is 9 feet 9 inches tall. (Although the South Dakota state parks website lists slightly different exact dimensions.)

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Driving through the Needles Eye Tunnel!

PHOTOS!

And then your drive through the needles eye tunnel is over before you know it!!

But since you drove from south to north, good thing your needles eye experience doesn’t have to be! 😜

There are small parking areas with limited spaces near the needles eye.

If you don’t want to drive through the tunnel but you want to see it, you can drive from Sylvan Lake to Needles Eye, and then turn around at the Needles Eye parking lot.

So once you are at the needles eye parking area, you can get out of the car to walk around (there’s a small path through rocks to the right of the tunnel), look up at the needles eye, watch other cars drive through the needles eye tunnel, and maybe even watch the a rock climber scaling the rock near the needles eye. (Rock climbing is a thing in the Black Hills.)

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And then once you’ve taken in the views around Needles Eye, you can continue driving along Needles Highway!

Needles Eye tunnel map

👆 Map of where the Needles Eye Tunnel is located in the United States. Explore the map.

👆 Map of where the Needles Eye Tunnel is located in South Dakota. Explore the map. Explore more places to visit in South Dakota!

And that’s a bit about driving the Needles Highway!

If you’re interested in the Needles Eye Tunnel, you might also be interested in these things around South Dakota:

• Iron Creek Tunnel
• Sylvan Lake
• Sunday Gulch Trail
• Things to do in Custer State Park (views!)
• Doane Robinson Tunnel (tunnel view of Mount Rushmore)
• Things to do in Mount Rushmore National Memorial (views!)
• Things to do in Badlands National Park (views!)
• Things to do in Wind Cave National Park
• Cathedral Spires trailhead
• Things to do in Jewel Cave National Monument
• Legion Lake
• Big Badlands Overlook

HAPPY DRIVING THROUGH THE NEEDLES EYE TUNNEL!

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