Autumn Arrives at Shadehill

Sep 30, 2020

Sioux Falls photographer Christian Begeman was in the midst of a West River trip when he alerted us to the quickly changing landscape around the Shadehill Reservoir in Perkins County. “It was pretty colorful out there yesterday,” he reported as September turned to October. “Hugh Glass would have wept.”

            Glass, of course, is the mountain man who was mauled by a grizzly bear near the Grand River in 1823. Left for dead by the members of his party, Glass crawled 200 miles across the West River prairies to Fort Kiowa. Any tears he may have shed would probably have been in rage toward his friends or pain for his badly broken leg rather than the foliage. Fortunately, we have no such worries, and can simply enjoy the yellows and oranges of autumn descending upon the Shadehill country.