Rafter J Bar Ranch – Black Hills – Hill City, South Dakota – Week One
We arrived in the Black Hills of South Dakota on Thursday, July 1st. The Black Hills are an uplifting of the earth in the western part of South Dakota and the eastern part of Wyoming. The hills tower in the west from Rapid City, elevation 3200 feet. The tallest hill (mountain) is Black Elk Peak at 7244 feet and our campground, Rafter J Bar Ranch, was at 5100 feet, and at least 10 degrees cooler than Rapid City on the plains. The campground is in an alpine meadow and consists of several different camps, named Main Camp, Base Camp, Line Camp, Ranch Camp, Lower Ranch Camp and the Island. Line Camp, our location is on the east side of the meadow above Spring Creek and across the canyon from South Dakota highway 385, the main north-south highway in the Black Hills.
On Friday, July 2nd, we went to the Pennington County Treasurer’s Office (the tax office) and changed the registration on our motorhome, the Canyon Star from Georgia to South Dakota. We were not able to change the registration on our Chevy Equinox because Bank of America only sent a certified copy of the title and not the original. Unfortunately, it took multiple phone calls to get the original title and it only arrived the day before we left.
On Saturday, July 3rd, Walt started to explore the Mickelson State Trail, a 109 mile long bicycle trail that runs the length of the Black Hills from Deadwood, SD, in the north to Edgemont, SD, in the south. At Rafter J Bar, we are at about 55 miles from Edgemont, so roughly in the very middle of the trail. The surface is packed gravel, but rides fine. He started north on this first ride and went 3.5 miles DOWNHILL all the way to Hill City, then 3.5 miles UPHILL to the north. On the way back, the up/down was reversed. The trail is a former railroad roadbed from the Burlington Northern Railroad. The trail was developed in the 1990’s and named after a former South Dakota governor, who was a proponent of the idea. The trail is maintained by volunteers with user fees. A trail pass costs $4 per day or $15 for an annual pass. The ride was beautiful but turned wet when it started to rain about 2 miles from his finish.
After resting and our vehicle licensing activities, we began our exploration of the Black Hills on Sunday, July 4th. Taking Joon and Bess with us, we headed south on US 385 thru the town of Custer to Pringle, SD, paralleling the Mickelson Trail. In Pringle some enterprising people created “Bicycle Heaven” a large “Sculpture” (???) of old bicycles piled on top of old bicycles piled on top of old bicycles. We continued to the town of Hot Springs, a resort dating from the 1880’s with warm mineral spring water spas and Evans Plunge www.evansplunge.com/. Established in 1890, Evans Plunge is the oldest tourist attraction in the Black Hills, with spring-fed waters maintaining a pool temperature of 87 degrees and a flow of 5000 gallons of water per minute. We continued north from Hot Springs to Wind Cave National Park. Walt’s family had visited this park on their 1968 trip to the Pacific Northwest, but did not take a cave tour, as all the tours had already been sold. When we arrived, all the tours had also been sold out, so we determined to come back another day. Just north of Wind Cave, we drove into Custer State Park, gfp.sd.gov/parks/detail/custer-state-park/, named the best state park in the country. We stopped at Blue Bell picnic area for a lunch packed by Martha, then continued up to the Needles Highway (SD Highway 87 north). Fourteen miles long, the Needles Highway is a spectacular drive through ponderosa pine and Black Hills spruce forests, meadows surrounded by birch and aspen, and rugged granite mountains. The road’s name comes from the needle-like granite formations, which seem to pierce the horizon along the highway. The roadway was carefully planned by former South Dakota Governor Peter Norbeck, who marked the entire course on foot and by horseback. Construction was completed in 1922. The highway has two tunnels, Needles Eye Tunnel (Near Needle’s Eye), 8′ 9″ wide by 9’8″ high and Iron Creek Tunnel, 8′ 9″ wide by 10’10” high. On the north side of the Needle’s Eye, the highway goes past Sylvan Lake, a beautiful, rock rimmed alpine lake that was featured in the film National Treasure II.
On Monday, July 5th, Walt rode south on the Mickelson Trail, 6 miles from the Rafter J Bar to the Crazy Horse Memorial. It was ALL UPHILL. The first 3 miles gradual and then the last 3 steeper. It took an hour and ten minutes to complete and the average speed was not above 5 MPH. However the return trip was GREAT!! It took 30 minutes and he was struggling to keep his speed under 20 MPH. What a ride! We then drove to Rapid City (we did this often during our visit) to take the dogs to the dog sitter, so we could go on a bus tour the next day.
We traveled to Rapid City (again) on Tuesday, July 6th, to Fort Hays. This is a reproduction US Army fort from the 1860’s, in fact the Fort Hays from the movie Dances with Wolves. The movie was actually filmedabout 15 miles east of Rapid City on a private ranch in the summer and fall of 1989, and then released on October 19, 1990. In 1993, two of the buildings from the filming were moved to the west side of Rapid City and the Fort Hays attraction was born. We ate a hearty pancake breakfast and wandered around the town visiting the blacksmith, the ropemaker, the tin maker and other attractions. At 9:00 AM we boarded the Mount Rushmore Tours bus, mountrushmoretours.com/mount-rushmore-sightseeing-tours/mount-rushmore-sightseeing-tour-package/. We toured Mount Rushmore, then drove the Iron Mountain Road, which connects Custer State Park and Mount Rushmore National Memorial and passes through some of the most beautiful scenery in the Black Hills, including three tunnels that frame Mount Rushmore in the distance. The road is famous for the “Pigtail Bridges” that allow travelers to drop or gain altitude quickly. The highway was constructed in the 1930s under the direction of Governor Peter Norbeck. We ate lunch at the Custer State Park Game Lodge, the summer White House for President Calvin Coolidge in 1927, and also a host for President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950’s. The bus then drove the Needle’s Highway, and unbelievably fit through the Eye of the Needle tunnel. We visited the Crazy Horse Memorial crazyhorsememorial.org/, begun in the late 1940’s and not expected to be completed for perhaps another 50 plus years (2170 or later). Currently the chief’s head and arm are the extent of the sculpture. We returned to Fort Hays and had a chuckwagon dinner and were entertained by a cowboy band of local musicians.
On Wednesday, July 7th, we picked up the dogs and then spent the rest of the day and Thursday, July 8th, relaxing in camp. We did go to the Alpine Inn in Hill City for lunch, alpineinnhillcity.com/. Located in the Harney Peak Hotel, dating from 1886, the Inn serves European cuisine for lunch. The meal was great and we determined to eat there for dinner during the next week.
We returned to Wind Cave National Park on Friday, July 9th, arriving at 8:30 AM to find a two hour wait for tickets, by which time the tour times would be in the afternoon. We decided not to wait and drove again into Custer State Park to the 18 mileWildlife Loop, which twists and turns its way through the prairie and ponderosa pine-studded hills that harbor many of the park’s wildlife species. The inhabitants of the park include 1,350 free roaming buffalo, White-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, big horn sheep, burrowing owls, coyotes, mountain lions, prairie dogs and a band of the park’s feral burros. We fed carrots to the burros, saw many prairie dogs and had very close encounters with the buffalo. We stopped at the Visitor Center, which was surrounded by a log fence. Outside the fence, across the road and up into the prairie were many many buffalo. We were careful to heed the ranger’s warnings not to move too close to the fence. We drove on a gravel road into the prairie and got involved in a Buffalo JAM, cars were stopped as the buffalo crossed over the road.
Badlands National Park was our destination on Saturday, July 10th. The park was a 90 mile drive east onto the prairie from Rafter J Bar Ranch. We took the dogs with us and drove on Interstate 90 all the way to Wall, SD, and turned south onto SD 240 which becomes the Badlands Scenic Drive. The Badlands is composed of two parts, the northern section (the most visited section) and the southern section. We drove the scenic drive along the north rim of the northern section all the way to Cedar Pass Visitor Center (now the Ben Reifel Visitor Center). The fantastic formations were the result water and wind erosion, yielding fabulous vistas. We also saw Bighorn Sheep. From the visitor center, we drove west through Interior, SD, and Scenic, SD, on SD Highway 44, skirting the southern portion of the national park and returning through Rapid City to Rafter J Bar Ranch.