Category: outdoors

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Biking the High Country

Our mountains are friendly to bicyclists who plan ahead.

By Bernie Hunhoff
Photography by Stephen Gassman

Hairpin curves, low tunnels and the narrow roadway cause local travelers to avoid the Needles Highway, leaving it to bicyclists and other sightseers.

Mountains and bicycling don’t always go hand-in-hand. Many mountain ranges are too steep, too cold, too hot, too wild or too isolated for two-wheeling.

Black Hills biking is another story. Oh, you should give wide berth to the buffalo bulls in Custer State Park. Prickly pear cactus needles can puncture a tube. And you’ll want to watch for rattlesnakes in lower elevations. But those are rare occurrences. Bicyclists who have experience elsewhere seem to agree that the Black Hills may be the best kept secret in the pedaling world.

Joey Bonds and her husband, Eddie, came to Hill City six years ago so Joey could work as a summer tattoo artist. Most of her clients ride motorized bikes, but she and her husband love to explore the Black Hills on their mountain bikes. They did the same in Arizona, where Eddie ran a bicycle shop in the small city of Parker.

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Inquisitive and snack-happy burros welcome bicyclists to the wildlife loop in Custer State Park. The burros are harmless, but cyclists should give wide berth to the speedy buffalo.

“The scenery is awesome and the hills are so accessible,” she says.”Plus you can bike almost all year around. In Arizona it got too hot in the summer. My friends who bike here say there are usually a few days a month even in the middle of winter when you can go biking in the Black Hills.”

She says bicycling is safe on most public roads, but mountain bikers can also explore thousands of miles of trails — everything from maintained routes to old logging roads and fire trails.

The Bonds like the Black Hills so well that they opened a shop, Rabbit Bike, within a stone’s throw of the 110-mile Mickelson Trail in Hill City. They sell, repair and rent bicycles, and also provide guide services and shuttles for bikers. They’ve been splitting their time between Arizona and South Dakota, but they’ve sold the Parker bike shop and now plan to live and bike here year-around.

Their business success is part of an emerging biking culture in the Black Hills. Other bike shops are also opening, along with clubs and events that bring like-minded bikers together. The Black Hills Fat Tire Festival features spirited races for athletic mountain bikers every May. On the calmer side of the road, Black Hills Bicycling organizes group rides on paved roads that sometimes conclude with potluck dinners.

Jim and Glenna Books have started a”bicycle vacation company” called Dakota Bike Tours that arranges three, four and six-day excursions through the Black Hills — complete with shuttle service on steep inclines, overnights at campsites or bed & breakfasts, and the camaraderie of fellow biking enthusiasts. Some of their rides are ranked”easy to moderate,” while others — like the Iron Mountain Loop where bikers climb 700 feet in three miles — are quite challenging.

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The Black Hills’ network of low-traffic highways and off-road trails makes it friendly terrain for bicyclists.

Many weekend bikers can’t imagine pedaling up mountains, but Books says most inclines can be avoided.”Talk to the locals or use the Google elevation maps,” he advises.”We recently made a 42-mile trip and while we climbed about 1,600 feet in elevation, we dropped 3,550 feet in all.”

Books says he’s witnessing”an explosion” of the biking culture in western South Dakota. National tours are showing up, and local people are also discovering the joys of pedaling on-road and off. The Centennial Trail and the Mickelson Trail are off-road dream trips for bicyclists. Both are slightly more than 100 miles long and are maintained, mapped and equipped with trailheads and other amenities.

Books’ tours are often arranged around the Mickelson Trail that runs from Edgemont to Deadwood. His trips also include a”monuments” tour, a fall foliage ride, a Badlands loop and other scenic adventures on local roadways.

Tips From Bikers

Experienced bikers offer these suggestions for flatlanders who hope to pedal through the Black Hills:

  • Be prepared for the high elevations: you’ll have less lung capacity than you do back home. Drink lots of water and wear sunscreen.
  • Take a map or GPS if you explore backcountry forest trails because the routes don’t always go north and south.
  • Try to avoid busy roads like Hwy 385 or Hwy 16. The Black Hills are blessed with many secondary paved roads and scenic routes where speeds are limited to 35 mph.
  • Beware of buffalo, especially lone bulls in Custer State Park. You might also encounter cattle along the Mickelson Trail or Centennial Trail but they are seldom aggressive.
  • Mountain lion sightings are rare and no confrontations have been reported with bikers. But if you do see one, make a lot of noise and it will likely slink away.
  • Rattlesnakes may be encountered (though rarely) in lower elevations. Keep your distance and they’ll keep theirs.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story is revised from the Sept/Oct 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order this back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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The Last Chokecherry Picking

By Margaret Roghair

While making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for our picnic lunch, I heard the happy voices of my two little boys through the open kitchen window. It was almost autumn. The tall prairie grass surrounding our Jones County farm near Okaton was turning brown and the chokecherries were ripe: The kids and I were going to pick some with a friend, Fran, and her two little girls.

As we traveled to Fran’s house up and down the roller-coaster hills (we called the road passage”Tipperary” after the famous bucking horse), the meadowlarks greeted us with songs. Goldenrods nodded as if to say,”All is well this happy day.” We watched an old eagle rise lazily from his lookout on a high corner fence post and soar into the blue sky. A snake slithered across the road, reminding me that danger was always near. If someone got bit by a rattlesnake, could I slash the skin with a razor blade and suck out blood before starting the 70 miles to a doctor?

Our car rattled over the planks of the old wooden bridge and Fran’s big shaggy dog, hearing us approaching, announced our arrival. Fran tucked her two small girls into her car and led me across the prairie toward the corner of the school section where she knew chokecherries abounded.

We followed as her car bounced over crisscrossed car tracks on the prairie. We came upon a prairie dog town and watched the little creatures pop out of their mounds and stand on hind legs to peer at us. They would bark and scold, then scurry down their holes.

A few miles further and we had reached an isolated and sheltered draw, devoid of vegetation except for wild chokecherry that bordered the bank of a dry creek on the further side.

The children scrambled from the cars, eager to pick the tiny berries. Soon their faces were smeared with the purple juice and their lips puckered from the astringent taste of the wild fruit, and they were off to play. I had spread a blanket on the ground in the sheltered cove and Fran and I took turns calling the youngsters back from the tall grass that surrounded this sheltered little spot. Here was a small world all our own with only our little ones and the songs of birds and the chirping of crickets to keep us company.

Then the solitude was broken by the sound of an airplane overhead. We recognized it as that of a rancher who lived farther on up the creek. He was making a routine trip to town. The children shouted and waved their straw hats and sunbonnets as the pilot tipped the plane’s wings in response.

After we had filled our pails with the cherries and had our picnic lunch, we gathered our little ones and returned to our homes. I prepared the chokecherry juice and made a beautiful, clear jelly. The day was such a success, I considered writing a message on the jar’s labels about our fun outing.

As I was contemplating, my husband arrived from town with the mail. He spread the”Weekly” in front of me and pointed to the headline:”Rattlesnake Den Discovered.” I read on,”When Mr. Lynn Lyman was flying home to his ranch yesterday afternoon, he saw a gleaming patch beneath him as he flew over the dry creek bed in the corner of the school section where wild chokecherries grow. Closer scrutiny revealed a glistening, moving mass. To his astonishment he saw it was a mass of rattlesnakes. Instead of continuing to his ranch, he returned to town and summoned the state rattlesnake eradicator, and together they killed the snakes, numbering eighty in all. Rattlesnakes come from afar and gather into a den to hibernate in the fall, and it was not previously known that this thicket was their winter rendezvous.”

We saved the jelly for special occasions, for we did not venture out again to pick chokecherries.

EDITOR’S NOTE — The author, Margaret Bowder Roghair, was a native of Timber Lake who later moved to Oregon. She died in 2012. Her chokecherry picking memories appeared in the July/Aug 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order this back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.