You could climb around the hole, but then you wouldn't get to watch and listen to your friends struggle through. The route in the Needles of Custer State Park of the Black Hills of South Dakota is a total classic.

Pitch 2 belay ledge on Spire 2, headed up to Balcony Ledge.

This is Eyetooth from the summit of Spire 4. The spire 4/5 gully was lush green from all the rain a week before. This vista is truly awesome!

Eyetooth's summit is amazing! When you top out and look over the backside, the rock curves in and leaves you looking straight at the ground.

If you're climbing in the spires this should be at the top of your list. An exciting and exposed climb and wait till you reach the summit and look down the other side!

Took this photo from the the highway after me and my climbing buddy camped at the foot of the spires.

The beautiful Cathedral Spires in all their glory.

Look at all the pretty rock in the Needles. Yay, pretty rock!

Spud belaying while Jeff cleans the final pitch on Spire 4

We saw these mountain goats as we approached our climb on Spire Four. They were about twenty feet to our right and hung around to watch us gear up for the first pitch. Not much of an action photo, but we'd never been this close to wild goats before so it was kind of neat.

Evan on the approach pitch to spire four. It was pretty easy but we roped up since we had never been there before.

This is the first pitch as seen from the 3/4 saddle atop the approach pitch. The wormhole is barely seen under the chockstone and the face to the left is for the robust and claustrophobic folks.

This is a pic my friend took of me as I was belaying up our third climber on spire four. I spent about 1/2 hour trying to unlock the wormhole, but it didn't work. I ended up downclimbing and going around which resulted in tons of rope drag since I left a piece in the chimney to protect the small traverse.

A view from spire 4.

This is Neil and I as high as we've ever been.(Our first multipitch) I figure we were up about 200' on some dirty climb. It was full of shrubbery. The guide sucks. Photo by Jared Waterworth

An overview of the Cathedral Spires in the Black Hills of South Dakota. There are nine major spires(numbered 1-9 from left ot right) and hundreds of smaller spires around them.

Another view of Spire 3 from Spire 2.