Mickelson Trail Day 4: Back to Hill City

 Mickelson Trail Day 4: Finale

Thunder storms threatened all evening, the worst with silver dollar size hail, stalled a few miles west of Lead. We were thankful we were not in a tent. We could have taken the motel shuttle to Deadwood for supper. The gold may have been played out, but the town still hustles and bustles with folks still trying to take your money. Maybe not as involuntarily as in the days of Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, and the original Pam’s Purple door, but buyer be weary and don’t sit with your back to the door. 

Old mining towns are very similar. It was hard to tell if we were in Lead/Deadwood, SD or in Wallace/Kellogg, ID. Both areas even claim to be the center. Wallace of the universe and these parts of SD claim the center of the country.  

We opted to eat in Lead at the Sled Haus, featuring German style fare. The vittles were tasty. Rhonda had a turkey sandwich which contained a rather snappy coleslaw. I had a Jager-schnitzel on a bed of red cabbage. This was not your bland schnitzel from Vienna, it had a twang and it was tasty. Only served on Fridays and Saturdays. So get there early. 

Sleeping through the storms in the security of the Blackstone Lodge, we got up and hit the trail before 8. We retraced our path up and down through Lead and found the trail as we left it and started the climb up.   

The country here is also familiar to home. Ponderosa pine forest mixed in with some Spruce. However, the deer have a white tail compared to our muleys. As we traveled south we road through the  old mining communities of Rochford, Mystic, and Dumont eerily similar to the drive to Idaho City. It was all beautiful. 

The miles clicked off fast today. Maybe we are just getting our touring legs. Soon we were on the downhill into Hill City and the Splinter. We are showered and doing some clean up and lounging until we can gather enough energy to find a pizza. We need to make it quick. Forecasted t-storms loom and it could be a noisy night in the Splinter Van.  

Mickelson Trail Day 3

 Beautiful Climbs and Descents, Day 3 Mickelson Trail

Woke up this morning to lots of moisture and fog. Jon checked the weather app and just like every day that we have been riding, it said rain and thunderstorms. So far, the only rain we received was last night; a good, quick storm but we were in our van, no problem! Before 7:00am, we had hotel reservations in Deadwood/Lead. 
So off the bike came all the camping equipment (sleeping bags and tent) this makes for a lighter load and less to worry about everything getting wet. The news says severe thunderstorm warning right now but we are showered and laying around.
Another really nice day on the bikes. This trail has exceeded our expectations. The trail is very well maintained, really clean, well marked and has nice trailheads rest stations with and tool stations. Today we saw more cyclists than the other days. At one trailhead, we were just chatting with a group of cyclists and the man said, “is your name Jon?” His whole group started laughing and said, “you can’t take him anywhere, he knows someone.” Jon knew him from F & G from MT, a counterpart from his working days. (I think I have heard that before…). We had two climbs today. On the first downhill, we had three old railroad tunnels. They were the old wooden frames for the interior with the rocks all chipped away on the exterior in order to make them. The Aspen trees and forests were so pretty; you can tell they have had a nice spring because everything is very green. There were rambling streams and little waterfalls to entertain us along the way. Not really any towns in between Hill City and Lead/Deadwood. We quickly went to the grocery store and got a quick lunch as we rolled into town.
As I sign off, because we are hungry, a few thoughts about our adventure. We always look forward to the ride and try to prepare physically but there is no way to truly prepare without going and doing it. We did many rides and a shake down overnight trip in April. The weather always plays into the equation, even the humidity is a big deal when you aren’t used to it. The surface and load you are carrying makes a big difference also. We are tired and sore but can work through it. When we are done tomorrow, we will be sad to be done with a great trail. We will just be getting used to the way of the road when it is done. A couple more days and we would be over the hump and really in the zone. Still worth the hard work but over too soon. Hope we can keep going on adventures!!!!

Mickelson Trail Day 2

 Mickelson Trail Day 2

Edgemont back to Hill City

Pro tip:  always look up when you select your tent site. Upon arrival last night to the Edgemont Campground, I called the number and asked where to put my tent. The full hook up RV pads have reservations(no one was there). She said any place in the grass opposite the RV pads. Under the big tree with a picnic table would be fine. So up went the tent in a bit of wind. Showers were available and the water source was probably from the town of Hot Springs. They were refreshing. Then it was off to the Victory Steakhouse and Lounge where we listened to live music featuring a gal that sounded like Mother Mabel Carter. After my house special of chicken fried steak and salad bar, we waddled back to camp. 

Our chairs from our cross country trip were comfortable and worth carrying again.  Did you know that Edgemont sees 60 trains pass through a day? 60 trains in 24 hours and that’s, well you can do the math and then know how much sleep we got last night. Yep, the campground is about 50 yards from the tracks that see those 60 trains a day. And people reserve RV spots for the pleasure! Maybe they love trains. My dad loved trains and chicken fried steak, but he was smart enough to stay in motels across town. 

The trains were hauling coal, east out of WY and returning empty. I may not have had all my facts straight yesterday, as maybe the train I followed fighting fires wasn’t hauling coal and if it was, not back to WY. But remember, I was a newbie 44 years ago. 

Back to camp. As we were tired, we hopped in the tent and attempted to doze off. As it grew dark, an eerie orange glow shown through the tent. Maybe a train jumped the tracks and was headed straight for us.  Directly above us, not far from the tree was the yard lamp turning on. Look up! 

We were tired enough that we got a few winks. 

The sun comes up early here, like dawn starts at 4:45am. I forced myself to stay in bed till 5:30 before I built myself some coffee. 

After some oatmeal and more coffee we set off retracing our route back to Hill City(our plan is to leave the Splinter Van there and do the trail up and back from the middle). Yesterday we experienced a headwind and I did not realize we were riding downhill most of the day. No headwind today but about 50 miles up at a 1-3% train grade before we cruised the last 10 miles down to camp. 

Our first break was in Pringle. 

After college and a couple years proving my self to SDGFP, I was once again a newbie. This time a Conservation Officer(Game Warden) in Mitchell,SD. That’s east river, where folks are considered more agrarian, urban and genteel than the rough, independent, hard scrabble cowboy culture of west river. West river folk look towards east river folk the way most of Idaho views the state of Ada County back home. 

Back in Pringle: As a newbie CO, I was told stories of the Pringle Poacher Club(officially the Pringle Poachers Association).  The details escape me now, but if half of  their exploits of terror were true, there would not be any big game left in the Black Hills. Folklore mostly. The Pringle Poachers are more of a social club, meeting monthly in some dark and musty clubhouse, drinking beer, eating chislick, and telling each other lies while fundraising for the local volunteer fire department. 

After the break in the trailhead shelter while visiting with another biking couple, we saddled up and continued up. Today the first 20-25 mile ticked off fast, unlike yesterday. But as temps continued up with the grade, the miles slowed down. The Mickelson Trail had a series of trail side shelters with repair stands, toilets and hand pump water wells. We took advantage of them all, well no repairs needed but I did look them over real good. I was struggling when we entered the town of Custer. Although Rhonda loved her Mahi mahi lunch( we ordered a pork sandwich but hey), I was left wanting. Maybe it was too much on the bike snacks that included gels and such, but my gut just hurts. After lunch we had one last pull of 600 feet over 6 miles to the Crazy Horse sculpture turn before we cruised down a fast 10 miles back to camp. The Trailside Park and resort is one of the nicest RV parks I have ever stayed at. Very clean, green grass, clean showers, nice owners and camp sites are not packed in like sardines. And it’s just off the bike trail, go figure. 

Well, I’m looking forward to a shower then I off in search of a pizza. 

 

Mickelson Trail Day

 

Mickelson Trail Day 1

Hill City to Edgemont 

During the summer of 1980, between my junior and senior year of college, I fought wild land fires for the Division of Forestry, then part of SD Game, Fish and Parks. Our crew was stationed in Hot Springs, SD on the southern end of the Black Hills. 

When the fire danger turned up with the summer heat, trains laden with coal would chug slowly north along the Burlington Northern Rail line from Edgemont to Deadwood and on to WY. The coal fed the hungry coal fire power plant out of Gillette. Occasionally those Iron Horses would spark fires as their steel round hooves bit into the parallel lines they followed. So once or twice a week a fire crew and their engine would meet the train in Edgemont and follow it as best they could north, usually being relieved by a USFS crew in Pringle. A train conductor carried a fire radio and could call if he saw smoke from a fire caused by the train. As the newbie  on the crew, I got to go only once, towards the end of the summer after most of the crew left early for school. It was an uneventful patrol, but I got to see some new and gorgeous country. 

In 1983 BN abandoned the branch line and soon the rails were stripped and the easements retired. A group of forward thinking folk thought the line would make a wonderful rails to trails path. There was of course some opposition. However, then Gov George Mickelson championed the project in 1991 and by 1998 the 109 mile, first of its kind in SD, rails to trails was completed. The trail now bears Gov Mickelson’s name in memorial after his tragic death from an airplane crash in 1993. 

For a 100 years prior, the line transported people, freight, cattle, lumber, and mining supplies to communities like Argyle, Pringle, Custer, Hill City, Lead and Deadwood. 

Today we left Hill City riding south on crushed limestone to Edgemont traveling through forest, open Jack pine savannah, prairie cattle country and through Sheep Canyon to the southern terminus in Edgemont where we are camped in the city campground. It’s only appropriate that we are next to active BN line, still hauling coal, but around a flatter route depriving some college kid on the fire crew from taking a day away from the business end of a Pulaski. 

WyoDak Adventure 2023

Preamble 

It is time for adventure. The Mickelson Trail in South Dakota is calling. The foot and bike trail stretches 109 miles between Edgemont and Deadwood, South Dakota following the old Burlington Northern RR branch line. More on the trail later.

We left home a few days ago and traveled east stopping in Bozeman and then on to Aladdin,WY to spend a few days with Kim and Brenda Moline, a friend who is closer than a brother, as the writer of Proverbs wrote. They are building a home in the Bear Lodge foothills surrounded by scrub oak, pine, cattle and the cowboy culture that has been sustained for generations. 

We toured the country side, ending up at Devil’s Tower National Monument and having lunch in Hulett. 

Sunday we attended Cowboy Church followed by a tour of Spearfish Canyon and a picnic dinner with Kim’s daughter Tess and her husband Christian and their two kids. 

 

Monday started with a local gravel ride circumnavigated the Moline’s neighborhood followed by a leisurely ride to Cook Lake where we watched the day go by. 

This morning we said a long goodbye before heading to Hill City, SD where we start our 4 day tour of the trail.