The Black Hills of South Dakota and the Incredible Things That Happen When Skies Go Dark

The Black Hills of South Dakota and the Incredible Things That Happen When Skies Go Dark 

By Jeff Pfaller

The forest I woke up in had transformed since I fell asleep. 

Moonrise streamed through the ponderosa pine and bathed my tent with a silvery spotlight that I had to squint against, even behind the canvas. When I emerged, a light mist had settled among the forest. Moonbeams knifed through the trees, and I couldn’t see further than a few hundred feet.

The world felt like it had shrunk to encompass just me, the surprisingly bright moon, and the breeze rustling the crisp fall leaves.

It’s the type of unexpected moment that reminds how much magic the night holds.

When the sun sinks below the Black Hills, the landscape shifts. Shadows lengthen, the world holds its breath, and the sky unfolds with endless secrets.

However, a lot of visitors head home after sunset and miss this incredible opportunity. For the adventurous photographer or visitor, popular places like the Devil’s Tower or Black Elk Peak become your own private viewpoints. 

Your reward for getting up early or staying out past your bedtime is a night sky stretching from horizon to horizon. Feeling the hairs on your arm stand up at the sound of a pack of coyotes howling at the moon setting over Badlands. Or gazing up at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. 

Back in my tent, I zip the door and huddle into my sleeping bag. I’ll wake up to tiny crystals of frost glittering on every surface in the sunrise. There’s no one else sleeping in this part of the forest, likely for miles. For me, it’s one more incredible memory made in the Black Hills National Forest. 

Support Black Hills Preservation Project by purchasing Dark Skies: Rare Phenomena in America’s National Parks photography book

20% of the profits are directly donated to Black Hills Preservation Project

Why do dark skies matter to the Black Hills wilderness?

Far fewer people experience public lands at night, so many wonder if it’s important to invest in things like shielded lighting and preservation of structure-free landscapes. But it’s a critical element of the prairie and forest ecosystem.

It’s almost impossible to find a natural rhythm more universal than the day and night. It’s not just nocturnal animals like bobcats and skunks that rely on darkness to hunt and forage. Daytime animals’ circadian rhythms need the darkness to recover and evade predators. Many birds and insects also rely on the stars in the sky to navigate their migration routes. 

Nocturnal moths and beetles propagate throughout and can be impacted by light pollution. It attracts them away from their natural habitats and disrupts their behavior. Anyone who’s seen a frantic swarm of insects around a porch light can confirm this phenomena. 

For many species, darkness is quite literally a matter of life and death. 

And it’s not just the animals, but the plants too. The vegetation grows, flowers, and supports the pollination cycle based on the movement, and absence, of the sun.

So much of the life that happens after dark is unknown to us. Similar to the deep ocean, observing night time creatures and plants is more challenging than their daytime counterparts. In many cases, we’re not quite sure what we don’t know about life after dark. It’s more likely than not that we don’t fully grasp the benefits of our symbiotic relationship with many of these organisms.

For flora and fauna in the Black Hills and Badlands, darkness isn’t the absence of light. It’s the rhythm of the wild.

Humans would be lost without the dark

Nighttime is critical to humans too. It’s hard wired into who we are and played a key role in our success as a species. 

We spread across the Earth using the stars in the night sky as our guide. Countless ships carrying entrepreneurial humans forged new paths and thrived using these points of light as navigation. Quite literally, we would be lost without the stars.

It’s also woven into our hearts and souls. There is not a single culture on the face of this planet that doesn’t have a tale about the stars. The moon has been elevated to god-like status in the stories we’ve told ourselves over and over throughout millennia. Dark skies are how we formed bonds when we came back to the safety of the village after a day of hunting and foraging. It was the inspiration for our myth making. It is as much a part of our DNA as anything else.

If we lose our connection to these stories, who will we be? If we lose that which thrives in the dark, how much will the vibrance of our natural world be dimmed?

Want to help protect dark skies in Black Hills National Forest?

Black Hills Preservation Project’s goal is to prevent commercial mining on public lands in the Black Hills of South Dakota. This is to preserve, land, drinking water, and the natural beauty of the Black Hills. Commercial outfits bring light and noise pollution to otherwise wild areas, impacting wildlife, vegetation, and human’s ability to enjoy the landscape.

20% of the profits for every sale of Dark Skies: Rare Phenomena in America’s Public Lands purchased through the link directly supports conservation efforts of Black Hills Preservation Project to work through elected legislators to not only designate the Black Hills as off-limits for commercial interests, but to also keep them dark.

About the book: If you’ve ever stared at the stars and felt something stir inside you, this book is for you. Dark Skies is more than a photo collection. It’s a portal into the rare, the unexplained, and the unbelievable. It captures the ephemeral wilderness of our public lands in a way you haven’t seen before. It’s my love letter to the American park system, and donating a part of every sale is my small way to say thank you to our beautiful country.

Support Black Hills Preservation Project by purchasing Dark Skies: Rare Phenomena in America’s National Parks photography book

20% of the profits are directly donated to Black Hills Preservation Project

About the author:

Jeff Pfaller is an award-winning photographer and has visited all 7 continents, all 50 U.S. states in the U.S, and over 20 countries. He funds his wanderlust and parkaholic habits as a content strategist. He lives in Chicago with his wife, three children, and rotating menagerie of animals.  His latest landscape photography book, Dark Skies, seeks to help people experience public lands like the Black Hills in a new way by celebrating rare moments in the night sky.

SEO Meta Description

Discover the best spots in the Black Hills National Forest to photograph the night sky — including hidden locations for stargazing solitude, astrophotography settings, and safety tips.

Copyright © 2025 Black Hills Preservation Project 

Custer, South Dakota 

Black Hills Preservation Project is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible. 

©2025 Black Hills Preservation Project. All rights reserved.

Black Hills Preservation Project

PO Box 9

Custer, SD 57730 

Contact Email:  blackhills@myyahoo.com

www.blackhillspreservationproject.org