Crazy Horse

I came across the Crazy Horse monument, supposedly the “world’s largest mountain carving” in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Black Hills is where Mount Rushmore is, site of the sculptures of the former US presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln). 

I was curious of the earthmoving involved. It’s basically cutting the mountain along the lines of a sculpture that Korczak did of the Lakota warrior, Crazy Horse, seated on his horse and pointing over the horse's head as he says, "My lands are where my dead lie buried."  As sculptors see it, the job is to remove all the rock that doesn’t fit.  How do you do that?  With explosives, Caterpillars and John Deeres (I worked with these stuff) and if one is not careful, you are liable to remove what you want to keep.

 

Blasting (like when they demolish a building) involves timing the explosives to detonate at a predetermined sequence involving fractions of a second intervals? How do you do that?  I learned from a blaster from Atlas mines that blasting caps made by Novel (yes the novel prize people) have different codes, meaning different timings.

All blasts at Crazy Horse are designed, drilled and executed to protect the rock that is left after the blast. This is the opposite of most blasting operations, where the main concern is the material being blasted away.

Millions of visitors view this monument every year, with special events like art shows, laser shows and night blasts in nights, exhibition of cowboy skills. There is a visitor center, bronze showroom, gift shops, conference and education center.