The 6 Best Swimming Holes in South Dakota

Lewis and Clark Recreation Area is South Dakota's version of a resort park, built on the shore of Lewis and Clark Lake, a 31,400-acre Missouri River reservoir behind Gavins Point Dam about five miles west of Yankton. Campers consistently describe the water as clean and clear, with multiple sandy swim beaches and shaded spots connected by bike and hiking trails.

This is a polished lake to swim in rather than a backcountry swimming hole, and that is exactly its appeal. You get four campgrounds, full day-use facilities, and a shoreline set up for families, on a lake with real history: Lewis and Clark's expedition held a council with the Yankton Sioux near Calumet Bluff in 1804.

Sylvan Lake is the postcard lake of Custer State Park, a 17-acre pool ringed by the granite spires of the Needles district and dammed since 1891. It has a designated swim beach, and visitors describe the water as beautiful and the swimming as amazing, with plenty of people slipping in off the granite rocks around the shoreline.

This granite-rimmed swimming hole doubles as a hub, with kayak rentals at the lodge, rock climbing, a roughly one-mile trail circling the water, and trailheads toward Black Elk Peak and The Needles. It gets very busy in peak season, so expect a packed scene in summer.

Wall Lake is a natural glacial kettle lake about six miles west of Sioux Falls, and its sandy beach at Wall Lake Park is the only official public swimming beach in the entire Minnehaha County park system. That makes this the sanctioned swimming hole for the area, and it reads as a casual, family-oriented lake beach rather than a deep-water adventure spot.

The lake itself covers roughly 228 acres and reaches about 23 feet deep, set in rolling prairie just outside Hartford. There are no lifeguards and the county is upfront that you swim at your own risk, so it started a free life jacket loaner program at the beach. Boat traffic gets heavy on the lake during the day, which is worth knowing before you wade out.

Lake Alvin gives the Harrisburg area, just southeast of Sioux Falls, a sanctioned swimming hole in a 105-acre state recreation area built around a dammed stretch of Ninemile Creek. The designated swim beach is a popular gathering spot for swimmers, and because the whole reservoir is no-wake, the water stays calm enough for casual family swimming.

One honest caveat: water quality here comes and goes. State health officials have closed the beach at times after routine testing found unhealthy bacteria levels, and one Sioux Falls area swimmer described conditions as cycling between pleasant and gross. Check current advisories before you load up the car, especially with kids.

Stockade Lake is the biggest of Custer State Park's five lakes, a 130-acre reservoir on French Creek formed by a 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps dam. It hosts an official park-maintained swim beach with picnic areas, a playground, and campgrounds on both shores, making it the most developed swimming hole in the park.

Like all of the park's lake beaches, there are no lifeguards, and the park monitors water quality, having closed the beach at least once after flooding on French Creek raised bacteria levels. Otherwise it is a straightforward family place to swim in the Black Hills, right off Highway 16A just east of the town of Custer.

The Forest Service calls this the largest swim beach in the Black Hills National Forest, and it is only about 15 miles west of Rapid City. Sheridan Lake is a pine-ringed reservoir on Spring Creek, and the water at this north-shore beach stays calm, the kind of lake swimming that suits families, kayakers, and anyone who just wants to float without fighting waves or current.

It is a proper designated swimming hole with a marina, boat launch, and picnic area on the same shore. About 0.3 miles away at Dakota Point, some visitors cliff jump into deep water, but that is an informal spot with a fatal fall in its history, so treat it as a separate thing entirely from the family beach.