Nebraska National Forest: Soldier Creek Wilderness

Having exhausted a bit of energy in completing the Jewel Cave caving tour last night, Noelle and I just weren’t in the mood for a long road trip. Instead of heading over to the Cave Hills like we had originally planned, we instead opted to stay a little closer to home and head down to Nebraska and the Soldier Creek Wilderness. The drive down was uneventful and to be honest, a little bit boring. We made it into Crawford by a little after 11. We walked around town before settling on the Frontier Restaurant (and bar) for lunch. After a delicious lunch we drove through Fort Robinson State Park through a surprisingly deep creek, and into Nebraska National Forest where we found the trailhead for the Trooper Trail and Soldier Creek Wilderness.

The hiking was pleasant. In the beginning we crossed Soldier Creek several times,

and then headed up into higher ground where the views were great.

Fortunately, the weather was cool. There’s not a whole lot of shade in the wilderness due to a major fire in 1989.

We could imagine it gets rather hot on a really warm day. We followed the Trooper Trail to its junction with the Boots and Saddle Trail, then descended to Middle Fork of Soldier Creek where we found a decent spot next to the creek to camp for the night.

After filtering some water from the least muddy section of creek and making dinner, we retired for an early night of sleep.   

The Jewel Cave Adventure

This evening after work Noelle, myself, and two co-workers headed over to Jewel Cave to check out their Spelunking Tour. It’s about time we checked it out. We had often wondered what the tour was like and had heard that it’s more difficult than Wind Cave’s. When we arrived we crawled through “the brick” to make sure we were all small enough to fit through the smallest part of the route, the “Brain Drain”. After making it through and signing the required paperwork we went into the cave with Lydia, our guide.

The tour turned out to be a lot of fun. Indeed, it is more difficult than Wind Cave’s caving tour. However, the Brain Drain was hardly the most difficult part of the route. As a matter of fact, the Brain Drain turned out to be quite easy.

The difficult part of the route was the climbing and chimneying. We all made it through though. In fact we covered the route pretty quickly, in just over two hours.

I now feel like a veritable Herb Conn.

Wind Cave National Park: East Bison Flats Trail

I had the evening program tonight, so I decided to go for a hike in the park this morning. I walked out the door and hiked into Wind Cave Canyon and then up the East Bison Flats Trail.

The weather was pleasant and there were a lot of wildflowers to look at.

I soon started to see some wildlife as well. I saw prairie dogs, a coyote, pronghorn, about 100 elk, and a big lonesome bull bison. Another great day in the park.

Wind Cave National Park: Reaves Gulch

Today, Noelle and I had decided, was reserved for hiking in Wind Cave National Park. We had looked at the map and tried to agree on an area that we wanted to explore. Reaves Gulch looked like an interesting spot on the map. It contains a deep canyon and is heavily wooded.

We decided that this would be our spot for exploration. Unfortunately, Noelle was not feeling well today, so I went exploring without her. Reaves Gulch ended up being quite interesting like we had figured. I saw lots of elk down and around there.
 
Besides the elk being bountiful there was also a lot of poison ivy. In this respect it was probably better that Noelle did not come along. After a while of tromping through poison ivy I came to a game trail that led out of the gulch. I followed it up to a grassy forest edge where I saw about 30 elk, females with calves. I watched and listened to the elk for quite a while and then moved up a bit. When I crested a hill three elk calves nearly ran into me!

From there I walked back to the game trail and followed it back down into the gulch and then up the other side. I followed the gulch rim for a while and then followed a drainage east. This drainage ended up being part of Curly Canyon. The canyon made for some interesting, but difficult walking. There were lots of downed trees and poison ivy. Eventually I got tired of trudging through the stuff and made my way up some ridges. At the last ridge before I returned to the Centennial Trail there was a dead tree with a walnut shell necklace draped from it.

I then hiked down the ridge and back to the car to drive home and take a shower, After my shower and a delicious dinner I headed out for a short evening stroll. I ended up walking to Alvin McDonald’s grave and then over to Bison Flats. At Bison Flats I didn’t see any bison, but instead a large prairie rattlesnake.

It rattled at me and was very close to a dead prairie dog. Had it killed this prairie dog for its dinner? I don’t know but it was interesting to observe for a while.

Black Hills National Forest: Harney Peak

It was a beautiful morning and so Noelle and I decided to hike up the tallest peak in South Dakota, Harney Peak. We packed up our gear and hit the road bound for the less traveled Willow Creek Trailhead. Our plan was to hike up Harney from the north. The trails on this side of the peak see much less traffic. So after getting stuck behind gas-guzzling RVs headed for Mount Rushmore we made it to the trailhead. We hit the manure covered trail and at first it was a real slog along dusty trails within earshot of the highway. About 2 miles into the hike the conditions started to improve.

There was less evidence of horse use and the trail entered into the Black Elk Wilderness.

Upon entering into the wilderness the scenery improved vastly as well. There were lots of granite rock formations and viewpoints to gaze at.

 When we got to the junction with the Harney Summit Trail the scene included a lot less solitude. There were tons of people up there; many of them looking like they had never hiked a mile in their lives. Several people carried water and snacks up in plastic grocery bags. The summit area was also an interesting place to listen to conversations.

Several people upon seeing and hearing one of the sightseeing helicopters would say something like “that helicopter must be here for our ride down”, after which the others in their group would chuckle. One young boy claimed to be able to see his house in Mitchell, SD (about 350 miles away). Another gentleman claimed that the mountain receives a “ton of snow in the winter because it is above 7,000 feet just like Mount Mitchell and 7,000 is the magic number”, whatever that means.

We were able to bear about 5 minutes up on the summit with the hordes. We then headed down into relative solitude on the trail. The hike down went quick and before we knew it we were back to the car. It was a good way to spend a beautiful Black Hills day.

Hot Springs, South Dakota

With rain in the forecast again Noelle and I decided to play it safe and stay really close to home. We went into Hot Springs and ran a few errands: paid the phone bill, cashed our deposit check rebate from the old apartment, and went to Pamida to grab a few things that we need. After our chores we had some time to play. We decided to hike up Battle Mountain. It was a nice little hike up an old road. The top is interesting, but cluttered. It offers a great view of town.

We then hiked down and back to the car.

After our hike we were hungry and so decided to stop by the Flatiron for a little bit of lunch. After a delicious lunch we walked through town stopping at the Wild Burro and the Kidney Springs Gazebo

to fill up a water bottle.

Black Hills 7,000 Foot Peaks: Crow's Nest, Crook's Tower, & Terry Peak

There was a good chance of rain in the forecast for today so Noelle and I opted to stay close to home. We packed up some snacks, water, and rain gear and hit the road. Our destinations for the day would be the three peaks above 7,000 feet in the Black Hills that I had not ascended yet. We drove north through Custer and Hill City, and then veered west to Deerfield Lake. From there we left pavement and headed towards Crow’s Nest Peak. The forest travel map was a bit confusing. We spent a bit of time trying to find the right road to get us to Crow’s Nest. We finally decided that a grassy, old road was the correct one and hiked it, bushwhacked across an aspen clone to another road that led us to the summit and a benchmark.

From Crow’s Nest we headed north to Crook’s Tower. Once again the correct route was not as obvious as the map would have you believe.

We first ascended a small limestone bluff to what we originally thought was the summit. Upon hiking down we found a small limestone arch.

From there we started to drive back out when we noticed a road that more closely resembled what the map showed. We hiked this road to another limestone bluff. This, I believe is the actual summit of Crook’s Tower.

After Crook’s Tower we headed into Deadwood/Lead for lunch at Taco John’s. After lunch we drove over to Terry Peak Ski Area to hike up Terry Peak. We parked at one of the ski lodges and then hiked up the steep ski slopes to the summit.

There’s a large viewing platform up there that offered pretty decent views of the surrounding Black Hills.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of towers up there that tend to ruin the view. We descended the way we had come up and then headed to Rapid City for some grocery shopping. The quest is now officially over!