Itinerary

TRIP DAY 1

After meeting in Rapid City, we will begin our trip with a shuttle to Rochford, South Dakota in the heart of the Black Hills. The Black Hills has a rich mining history and our first evidence of that is the name of the drainage near the start of our ride: Poverty Gulch! But wealth was to be found, and removed via railroad. Many sections of the original rail system have been converted to trail. We'll start our ride today on the George Mickelson Rail Trail near the Rochford fire station. The pedaling is easy and allows us to take in the magnitude of the sheer granite valley walls. We'll have lunch in the town of Mystic where we can tour the abandoned buildings of the gold mining era. We'll pick up the Deerfield Trail for a little more technical riding in the afternoon. The doubletrack starts with a good climb winding up the Crooked Creek drainage. Short sections of singletrack along the way deliver us to Slate Prairie, a beautiful meadow where Mt. Harney looms as a backdrop. We will ride more singletrack rolling along the knolls of the meadow before descending into Kinney Canyon. We will camp tonight on a private bay inlet of Deerfield Lake. TOTAL MILEAGE - 24 miles, shorter mileage options are available

TRIP DAY 2

Today we head back east through the Deerfield drainage. The trail will seem familiar, since we climbed it yesterday, but the fun of descending makes it feel like a whole new ride. In the afternoon our ride takes us through a dense Ponderosa forest on a combination of old doubletrack and technical singletrack. Much of the trail is swooping and smooth, with intermittent pitches of steep rocky sections. The Black Hills were created by an uplift of metamorphic and igneous rock. Initially, these underlying rocks were covered by marine sediments, primarily limestone, some 65 million years ago. Since then, erosion has taken away the central part of the limestone forming an elliptical donut. This donut has granite, slate and schist of igneous origin in the center and marine limestone all around it. Evidence of this history is exposed in the sheer schist walls surrounding Slate Creek, where we'll camp for the night. Before dinner, you may opt for a quick splash in Slate Creek or a hike up through the metamorphic rock formation. TOTAL MILEAGE - 27 miles, shorter mileage options are available

TRIP DAY 3

We'll begin our ride this morning by climbing Skull Gulch on a beautiful dirt road, working our way up to the Tiffel Mine, an abandoned gold mine. Many of these trails and roads were created by energetic gold miners in the 1870's. We'll climb and roll through the Ponderosa forest and eventually join a rolling fire road down Nugget Gulch to arrive in historic Silver City. We continue riding to Pactola Reservoir where we will be met by a party barge for a cruise across the lake to our camp at Bear Gulch. TOTAL MILEAGE - 20 miles with optional 8 miles singletrack

TRIP DAY 4

Our party barge assists us once again and drops us and our bikes off at the east end of the reservoir where we will pick up the Centennial Trail heading south. This section is through a large open valley full of beautiful grassland leading to a series of short rolling hills. Today we will be arriving at our Sheridan Lake camp for lunch. We will have several choices for the afternoon. The riding option includes fun singletrack stream crossings to an isolated swimming hole above the dam. There are some wonderful slate ledges right above the water, perfect for a nap in the sun. Another option would be to head directly to the lake for an afternoon of swimming. TOTAL MILEAGE - 14 miles AM, 5 miles PM (optional)

TRIP DAY 5

From camp this morning, we'll ride up to the dam and pick up a sweet singletrack along the south shore of Sheridan Lake. The Flume Trail is fun and rolling and reminiscent of the trailbed created in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps. We'll meet the van at the far side of the lake and load up for a quick shuttle to Crazy Horse Monument. Boston-born sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski was invited by the Lakota Indians to carve Crazy Horse into the Black Hills in 1939. After voluntary service in WWII, the sculptor decided to accept the Indians' invitation and turn down a government commission to create war memorials in Europe. The dedication of the memorial was in 1998 and the work is still ongoing. We'll spend some time here, have lunch and shuttle up the road to Mt. Rushmore National Memorial. After a short visit, we will continue on to Rapid City. TOTAL MILEAGE - 5 miles

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