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South Dakota - Black Hills
and Spearfish
26th June - 1st July 2008
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The Black Hills of South Dakota were stunningly
beautiful and we decided to stay put in our campground just outside the park
and devote a few days to exploring the wildlife and
wilderness. Reaching the trailheads in Harvey meant
negotiating the sometimes steep, often winding and occasionally narrow park
roads but Harvey took all in his stride.....
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....the hairpin
bends.......
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......the corkscrew
bends.....
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.....the narrow
tunnels......
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.....and even being
re-surfaced around!
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The first trail we'd selected left from the
beautiful Sylvan Lake in the north of the park, which we'd already visited
the previous day. The trail was named Sunday Gulch and we
made our way to the trailhead uncertain of just what exactly a gulch
was. We soon found out as we scrambled down a narrow rocky
ravine, created by erosion from the stream through which we
paddled. We held on tight to handrails to avoid sliding
right down the gulch on our backsides! Luckily after the
first half mile or so, the trail became a normal, trail through beautiful
forestry with stunning gulch views.
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Learning about gulches the
hard way!
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On our return to Harvey, parked in a roadside
parking lay-by we were startled to see a road construction crew alongside,
laying a new road surface. Fortunately they'd left Harvey
an escape route but there may be a part of Custer park with a permanent
Harvey-shaped road feature!
Custer Park is famous for its wildlife and
we'd often come across fierce-looking buffalo loitering along the edge of
the road. It was hard to beat our first ten minutes in the park
when we'd not only found a flock of Bighorn Sheep resting near the road but
also encountered our first "buffalo jam", traffic congestion
caused by eager tourists photographing grazing buffalo. These
were to become a regular driving hazard from this point on.
Of course the buffalo were not only a tourist
attraction, they were also a regular menu item and we decided to give it a
try, especially after learning it apparently contained far less artery
clogging fat than regular beef, tasty too!
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Buffalo on the
hoof.................................................................and on
the plate!
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Since childhood, when he'd read borrowed copies
of "Field and Stream" magazine and wondered over pictures of
fly-fishing in the great American wilderness, Phil had dreamt of trying it
out for himself. Armed with a new fly-fishing rod, a
selection of flies and his South Dakota fishing licence, we set off on the
three mile long Grace Coolidge Walk-In Fishing Trail in the
park.
The trail itself was a beautiful mix of
woodland, prairie and stream and the walk was well-worth doing without even
without wanting to fish. We spotted a selection of
wildlife, including a large family of wild turkey and two snakes which were,
of course, encountered by the snake-o-phobe's size 6 hiking boots, leading
to a degree of panic! Luckily the snakes were small and non-venemous!
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Heading into the wilds in
search of trout
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After several hours of trying all types of
fishing spots in ponds and the prairie and tree lined streams along the
trail, Phil had enough success to reach his legal daily creel limit and we
had trout supper for several nights.
We made the most of the three-day fishing
permit by spending another couple of days exploring other fishing spots in
the park but always seemed to return to the lovely Grace Coolidge Trail,
even moving Harvey to a nearer campsite for the third day's
fishing. That evening we tried our luck with lake fishing too
but only managed to pull a tiny 1" crayfish out of the lake, which
obviously took a shine to our lure!
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At the end of a long day of watching the
fisherman hard at work, Christine was keen to take a walk which didn't
involve carrying a fishing rod and to explore some of the prairie
landscape. The somewhat weary fisherman agreed but used
all means in his power to persuade her to change her mind about the hike,
reading aloud all the warning notices at the trail head warning of
rattle-snakes, the dangers of sudden storms and the perils of approaching
grazing buffalo.
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Hiking the prairie trail.
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Undeterred by these attempts the hikers
continued along the prairie trail and Phil even began to talk of how glad he
was he'd decided to walk the trail, which was surrounded by an amazing
selection of wild flowers. We followed posts through the prairie
marking the route when suddenly he stopped...."You know those notices
about not approaching the buffalo? Well, what do we do if we encounter
a herd grazing all over the marked trail?" It turned
out that, with no obvious peril-free route around the huge beasts, turning
back was the safest option. It may have been a wimpy
option but those beasts are really, really big and we just weren't sure how
many more might be lurking just over the brow of the hill!! At
least we'd had a taster of prairie landscape.
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Uh-Oh! Now
what.....
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Time to turn back!
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We were sad to leave the beauty of the Black
Hills and Custer State Park but America is a big country and we had a lot of
it left to see, so we dragged ourselves away.
We drove through the infamous town of
Deadwood before arriving in another area of natural beauty, Spearfish
Canyon. After a lunch stop in the pretty canyon, we
arrived in the town of Spearfish. We wanted to visit
their historic fish hatchery but noticed that the town had kindly set up a
lovely campground right in the park, complete with electricity and wi-fi
internet, so we decided to check in, giving ourselves a little longer to
explore the town.
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Why didn't I catch one that
big yet?
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Those trout sure travelled
in style!
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We learned that the D.C. Booth Fish Hatchery had
been established in 1896 to introduce trout to the Black Hills and for fish
management in Yellowstone Park. Once of a suitable size
for release into the wild the young fish were transported first by specially
designed mule-panniers and later by modified rail cars to their release
locations. An underwater viewing area gave us a
chance to see our prey up close and personal.
The town park was beautiful and we enjoyed
riding the bike trails and watching local teenagers riding large inner tubes
down the river rapids in the park. They were certainly hardy
youngsters as when we ventured just our toes into the crystal clear waters,
we quickly left, squealing at the cold!
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