My trip to the Hills for rally Week

[Jud]

If you can bear with me, here is a somewhat tedious account of my ride to the Black Hills from the Twin Cities. It was originally for another forum, in response to a request for information on places to ride, camp and eat.

I got back Monday at about 3:00p.m. after camping the night before in Miller, SD. I had left town last Monday (08/04), riding my KLR as far as Highmore, SD, where I paid a call on Martin "revmaatin" Earl, a KLR rider, pilot, cowboy and methodist pastor who is active on the DSN_KLR650 list. We had been corresponding for about five years, but this was our first meeting in person.

When I rolled up at about 3:30pm, Martin was ready to go for a ride. I shed my luggage and we embarked on a three-hour tour of the rolling prairie backroads and section-line two-tracks in the Ree Heights area southeast of Highmore. This is one of many areas in the Dakotas where, if you look over there from the highway, you'd say there is nothing over there. But ride back into the prairie and you can find plenty of good unpaved riding, and in bad weather, perhaps some challenging routes, and last but not least, some beautiful, varied country and spectacular vistas. The ride included some geography, local history and botany lessons, including a roadside sample of an Indian herbal toothache remedy.

Back at the ranch, we enjoyed a game of UNO with his family, before I retired to a cot in the church basement. There was a couch in the living room. I usually favor couches, but only where my snoring won't disturb anyone. In the morning, we saddled up for an early ride over 30 miles of gravel, field roads and section lines to Blunt, where we had breakfast with a few of the local cowboys, one of whom picked up the tab before I could offer to buy breakfast for Martin.

Funeral duty that morning disrupted Martin's plan to ride to Rapid City with me, so I continued alone to Pierre and Bad River Road. My purpose was to find the route off Van Meter Road that comes into Midland the back way. I had found the route on the Delorme four years ago, but had missed the turn onto Van Meter road. This time, I had only my old recollection of the map, and a GPS with no detail for the area. A likely-looking turn followed the tracks for a few miles, but came to a dead end in a farm yard. I backtracked to Van Meter, which carried me south and east toward Murdo, when I wanted to be heading west to Midland. I was uncomfortably close to I90 before I came upon an east-west crossroad, which I followed for several diving and twisting miles before it carried me into the ranch yard of the Bad River Cattle Company. I tried one building, which was unoccupied. Next I approached the house, hearing voices as a neared the door. A pleasant woman answered my knock: "Well, come on in."
"Where am I?"
"You are way out in the sticks, mister."
"Well, I can see that. I was hoping this road would take me to Midland."
"Let me get my husband."

C.J. Rea introduced himself and I explained my dilemma.
"The old road is closed. What do you have for a vehicle?"
As we walked back out into the yard, I pointed out my overloaded DS bike.
"That'll do. I'll show you out to the road. He turned to go back to the house, then about-faced. "Have you had your lunch yet? I have some fresh halibut I just brought from Alaska." Some macaroni salad, watermelon and ice water rounded out a pretty good surprise luncheon. Afterwards, C.J. Rea led me out across a couple miles of two track across the prairie and pointed out the continuation of the track several miles in the distance.
"Just follow this track. It will take you over there. Keep going and you will come to a road, and the road will take you to Midland."

And so it did.

About 3:00 p.m., I reached Don Leonard's house in Rapid City. From the bikes and cars in the yard, I had a pretty good idea who was there, but the scene was dominated by a dead-looking DR650, lying on its side in the driveway, with the counter sprocket missing and the drive chain in disarray. The Suzuki was not in fact dead, but you could consider the scene an example of "foreshadowing".

The next three days were consumed with trying to ride sand Creek Canyon by day, drinking rye whisky, smoking cigars and telling lies in the evening. The guys had already been out to Cuny Table, and a few of them had bushwhacked their way across, leaving the reservation road to go cross-country. Wednesday, we rode the few miles up Sheridan Lake Road to Victoria Lake Road, an entertaining way to get the adrenaline pumping between south Rapid to HWY 385. We rode around the back side of Pactola, out to the Slate Creek Dam, and on out Lost Horse Road to the Hill City - Rochford Road. That was about as far as we got before Lou's DR, the one that had been lying in the driveway, puked its oil out the output seal and seized up making lots of expensive noises. Instead of Moonlight Gulch for lunch, we turned the other way to Sugar Shack, to facilitate a trip back to Don's house for a truck and trailer.

Since we were close to Box Elder Forks, I decided to split from the group in order to call on friends camped there. Since I was on my KLR instead of a dirt bike, and because I had heard that recent rains had turned Pilot Knob trail into a rocky hell, I stuck to the Merritt Estes cutoff to Nemo Road. At the campground, most of the guys I was looking for were out riding, and had not yet returned when I checked back a couple of hours later, after a pointless but not-too-annoying trip down Vanocker into Sturgis. I say not too annoying because the crowds were way down; I was able to ride Main Street without stopping except at the intersections.

Thursday we made another attempt to get up to the northwest corner of the Hills, but made the mistake of detouring (after a bacon-and egg sandwich at the Moonlight Gulch Saloon in Rochford) for an attempt to find Whitetail Peak. The trail that took us to a false summit got pretty tight before it petered out at a finger of rock. Coming back up, I biffed my KLR while attempting to climb a steep shelf. Then we killed almost an hour when Don did not come out of the woods after setting off on a "shortcut" to the road. By the time we all reassembled, it was too late to do anything but ride back down past Black Fox (another excellent, remote campground) to Rapid. Bob Hicks made chicken enchiladas to Jeffie's recipe, perfect for soaking up any excess Overholt that may try to find a premature route into the blood stream.

Finally on Friday we took a mostly-paved, more direct route to O'Neil pass, arriving early enough to get lunch at Buckhorn. The burgers are pretty good, but to have one, you have to pass up the deep-fried gizzards. I went for the burger this time, but managed to beg a couple of gizzards off Tim Jensen. We got up to the fire tower at Cement Ridge, where a comely rangerette did her best to be friendly and outgoing to a bunch of smelly, unshaven middle-aged louts. After riding up sand Creek, it was still early enough to stop in beulah for a beer before detouring down Whitewood Road to Boulder canyon, then out on the freeway for a couple of exits to ride up Bulldog Gulch. Bulldog seemed rockier after all the rain, and felt like a lot of work on the KLR, although I think I was sweating a bit last year on the DR, too. It must not have been too bad, though, because Robbie Himmelman did the whole thing on his RD350 with clip-ons. His other ride for the week was his KZ650 dual-sport bike. The Fox Shocks were long gone, but the RM forks were still there, making the beast at least tolerable on tight singletrack. Dinner for our last night in Rapid was at the Mongolian Grill on Lacrosse St.

On Saturday night of rally week, I always go to a barbecue down near Buffalo Gap, on Lame Johnny Creek. Lame Johnny Road goes into the back side of the Custer Wildlife Loop, not too far from the road that goes down through the back side of Wind Cave park, where you may or may not see antelope or the national park buffalo herd, but the scenery is always heartbreakingly beautiful. This route gives the option of entering Hot Springs from either direction There are several other unpaved routes into the parks, either from 79 or from 87. One of my faves goes past the horse corrals at Blue bell onto French Creek Road, coming out on the wildlife loop. Nobody will stop you to make you pay a park fee on any of these routes, although if you encountered a ranger, I suppose you could be busted.

Dinner is always brisket and lots of side dishes, with leftover brisket, scrambled eggs and fruit on Sunday morning. That's not a recommendation, because it's just the one night a year, and by invitation only. We got a late start for home on Sunday. One of the guests was showing steel cord on his rear tire, so we went into Rapid to find the Black Hills BMW Riders at breakfast. They found him a tire in short order, and he was able to blast back to the Cities by midnight, while the more leisurely pace dictated by my KLR put me in Miller on Sunday night.
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[The Yeti]

Wow! Great first post, Jud!! Love the writing, are you a professional?

But...this thread is uselsess without pics!! 

Welcome! You make me feel like I don't know my backyard nearly as well as you do...

[Jud]

Unfortunately, there was a shortage of photos on this trip. I will put up one of the almost-dead Suzuki, if I can get it to load on Imageshack.

Thanks for your kind words. If a guy lives in Minnesota, and likes to ride in the Western states, he is going to ride across South Dakota more than a few times. I have crossed the state by just about every route imaginable, and spend a lot of time there, either riding the hills during Rally Week, or trail riding up north of Wall. I am fortunate to have a lot of friends and riding buddies in the Hills, who have been generous in showing me around.

[Hank]

Very nice Jud.   Did you manage a stop at the Motocycle shop on your way out or back?

Glad to see you here!

[Jud]

No, I stuck to US14. Doug and his wife have been very good to us in the past. That is a shop I would buy a bike from. They always seem to have some interesting stuff on the floor.

[Jud]

Here's the pic I promised of the dead-looking DR in Don Leonard's driveway. Later in the week, it really did die.