Tag: crow peak

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Coming Home

By Paul Higbee

The verdict is still out. Some friends say I’ve found mature contentment and others claim I’m turning into a stay-at-home curmudgeon.

At issue is the fact that I’ve often traveled out of state in the last year. Sometimes I’ve flown and sometimes I’ve driven but either way, friends say, I’m more inclined to talk about how good it is to return home rather than describe the marvels found in Texas, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio and elsewhere.

This trend began when I spent time in Minneapolis and couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to buy cheap Timberwolves tickets. Then five minutes after crossing into South Dakota via I-90 I heard a radio commercial about a high school boys basketball triple-header at the Corn Palace, and I made a beeline for Mitchell. Of course, what’s a Corn Palace triple-header without a pregame steak at Chef Louie? What an evening: Chef Louie, three games in one of the nation’s unique and most comfortable basketball venues, and good visits with folk from Mitchell, Howard and Stickney. I wouldn’t trade the evening for any NBA ticket.

Anyway, back home in Spearfish, I maybe talked a little too enthusiastically about my big night in Mitchell, maybe even called the Chef Louie and Corn Palace combo the ultimate South Dakota winter experience, and some relatives and friends said I was no longer the jump-on-a-jet-and-see-the-country guy they once knew.

Some other things I’ve found thoroughly enthralling upon returning home (home being anywhere within South Dakota’s borders):

Interstate 90 and Interstate 29

Like most South Dakotans I’ve bashed these highways over the years, saying they’re boring compared to two-lane roads that conform to the prairie’s roll and pitch. But, unlike some eastern turnpikes, they’re toll-free, well marked, and food and fuel services are immediately adjacent. Speaking of fuel …

Mighty Few Pre-Pay Gas Pumps

In some parts of the country, wanting to pay for anything in cash makes you somewhat suspect. So you’re expected to pay for your gas before pumping it. A gasoline purchase is a business transaction. Leave it to South Dakota, a state that still prides itself in conducting business on a handshake, to believe a customer should be trusted to fuel up and then walk 50 feet in full view to the cashier.

Sioux Falls’ Small Town Charm

I know Sioux Falls sometimes promotes itself as urban, and maybe that’s smart, but thank goodness it isn’t a true big city. Re-entering the state from south or east, up I-29 or along I-90, I sometimes stop for coffee or lunch at one of Phillips Avenue’s sidewalk cafes. Pulling off the I-229 bypass I can be in the heart of downtown in 10 minutes, placing my order instead of navigating through rings of suburbs. And the inclusive sidewalk conversations and eye contact are anything but big city — especially noticeable if you’ve spent the previous days in ¸ber-urban America.

America’s Best Highway Rest Stop

It’s located at Chamberlain and offers a sweeping view of the Missouri River/Lake Francis Case. Plus there’s a Lewis and Clark museum display, wide lawns, trails, picnic shelters and spotless restrooms. This rest stop so out-distances others that I can’t even think where the nation’s number two or number three stops might be.

Scenic Overlook At I-90 Mile Marker 138

It’s an OK view of the wide prairie, especially at sunset. But if you’re a West River resident returning from the east, the scenery isn’t what impresses you here. Rather, this is where the air starts smelling right again: clear, dry, spiced by grama grass.

Wall Drug Donuts

A few years ago, when the rest of America was going bonkers over Krispy Kreme doughnuts and deciding they were the world’s best, South Dakotans knew better.

Crow Peak View

At Elkhorn Ridge, near I-90 exit 17, westbound traffic makes a wide turn and the whole north range of the Black Hills comes into view. A minute later, mighty Crow Peak dominates the horizon. It stands right on the state’s western edge and I’ve always thought of it as a mammoth bookend, keeping our stories and personalities and traditions from toppling into Wyoming. For me Crow Peak also marks the end of my journeys; we live so close to its base that I can’t see it unless I back away half a mile or so. But I always know it’s there; I always sense its presence. Maybe it’s what keeps me in South Dakota instead of toppling away into the far West.

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the September/October 2011 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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After the Blaze

Lightning sparked a fire that blazed across Crow Peak near Spearfish from June 24 into July, burning more than 2,700 acres and temporarily closing its trail. John Mitchell recently explored the popular path, much of it now running through a direct burn area. The forest service urges visitors to stay on the trail due to unstable trees.

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If You Live Long Enough

By Robert Speirs

I have lived in the western shadows of Crow Peak for nearly three decades, and in all of that time, I have never had this much company.

Long lines of tourists pack the drive, sitting with cameras and binoculars watching the mountain shed an irritating layer of pines after a fortuitous lightning strike gave her the opportunity to lose some weight.

It has been burning for four days now. The endless rotation of helicopters that fly over my roof in 5-minute intervals drop lake water from north of the interstate onto the flames in an attempt to steer the worst of the damage away from homes and ranches. Shifting winds hopefully will cause it to burn back upon itself and toward the layers of bug-killed pine that have fed the fire and kept it blazing.

I have a bit more history with Crow Peak than most. Other than having her name associated with my business, I spent a summer 36 years ago as a high school student building the hiking trail to the top. I earned my first promotion that June, becoming a crew chief while trying to impress a few of the ladies on my team by working a little harder than my companions.

I still have a piece of that summer on my desk — a pine slab cut from a pitch stump that we carried down from the summit on our shoulders. The growth rings are enormous, speaking of a 50-year period where it must have rained in epic proportions. Eventually, that tree was also taken by fire.

History tells us that between burrowing beetles and fire, the pine forest has been regularly swept away to make room for oak and aspen, grasses and wildlife. Each time, those who are merely tourists mourn the darkening of a specific view.

If you are only here for a short time, it seems such an inconvenience and perhaps even a loss to have a view you cherish altered during your days or years here.

But if you live long enough, or have faith that you might, fire can be a beautiful thing.

My grandfather is nearing 102. At his 100th birthday, he blessed me with a journal from my great-grandfather, who also lived more than a century. They both traveled through Spearfish 53 years ago to inspect me, their newly-born namesake. Great-grandpa’s journal mentions the lush hay fields along Spearfish Creek. He must have seen the barns now being dismantled and repurposed.

Barns, forests, and people transition through life and the newer versions can be even more beautiful than those they replace.

Many of us recall the devastation we felt in 1988 when more than a million acres of Yellowstone burned. Twenty-five thousand firefighters took turns battling the blaze. I, too, have fought fires for the Forest Service and admire the efforts being made on my behalf on the slopes of Crow Peak. Yet 20 years later, I relish my return trips to Yellowstone. The fire is but a memory and a few blackened stumps.

Here in the Hills, the two largest fires consumed 63,000 and 83,000 acres and occurred in the last 20 years. Once blackened, these areas are now some of the most sought after wildlife winter ranges, so much so that the majority of our elk now winter near Custer and bighorn sheep were able to be transplanted on the newly opened slopes near Deadwood.

If we live long enough, or expect to, fire can be seen as a way to sweep away the old and usher in the new. Perhaps there will be bighorns in Crow Peak’s future after the flames subside.

The thought of hiking the trail I helped build with future great-grandchildren and bumping bighorns from the rock slides is worth living a century for.

Robert Speirs is an educator and operates Crow Creek Wildlife Management Service in Spearfish.