Dratharr & Yeti Ride the Hills

[The Yeti]

Last Saturday (9/13) I met up with Matt (Dratharr) for a little ride through the hills. Matt's from Sydney, NE and has been to the hills quite a few times, but I still found a few trails he hadn't seen.

That morning was simply beautiful! Blue sky, no wind, about 55-60 degrees and I had one of those Zen motorcycle moments on my ride up to meet Matt.

I was cruising up Hwy 16 when Rush's "Making Memories" comes on my iPod, one of my all-time favorite songs.



I just lost myself in the song, the ride, the wind, the smells....actually got goosebumps. I love those moments!

There was some kind of bicycle race going on that day:





Saw bikes all over the hills all day. As you can tell, everything is still pretty wet. Just stopped raining about 6am that day.

I arrived at the Mt. Rushmore KOA exactly on time, 9am (thought I was gonna be late cause I got up a little later than I wanted to):



We headed up to Hill City, then turned north on 249:



That's Matt in my mirror if you can spot him:





Some of the fall colors are already showing, should be very pretty this weekend:





I love this area north of Hill City, there's a ton of cool trails, however we got shot down by a lot of mud. Had been raining pretty steady the previous week and everything was very wet, slippery and greasy. Every trail I tried to take just got too slick for my almost dead front tire. I'm sure Matt coulda made it through on his KLR, but I was too chicken-sh*t.

Luckily, we kept pushing on, hitting dead-ends, turning around, try another trail...we ended up on Castle Peak Road. This road was GREAT! Only a few mud holes, but lotsa nice puddles to splash through with mostly dry, hard-packed dirt. I love this trail!







The creek here was all kinds of funky orange colors...must be from all the rain washing iron out of the hills:





Stopped for a little rest at Castle Peak campground, not a sole in sight.



Didn't have as good of luck after that. Kept hitting dead ends. Chad, Brian, Jared and I were up in this area just a couple weeks ago, and I took Matt right into all the same dead-ends we hit back then...my memory just ain't what it used to be! It was still fun, even when you have to turn around a few times.

This little ATV trail was NOT fun on the 950. I thought it was a shortcut to where we wanted to go. This was as far as I made it before it got too soft/steep for the big 950.





Matt rode up around the bend and said he didn't recommend me trying it, we turned around again.

No pics after this cause a mean cold front moved in REAL fast! Dropped about 15 degrees in as many minutes, got overcast, and looked like it could rain (or even SNOW) any minute. We high-tailed it outa there, after hitting a couple more dead-ends. We got back to hwy 385 right as the rain started to fall.

Was a good time, Matt, glad you could make it up for a ride!

[loingrader]

matt, that's a nice looking scooter, and yeti, as always, nice job on the pictures and write up.

[Hank]

Yes, another fine trip report.   I'm really jealous that you get to do this stuff every weekend!

[The Yeti]

Well, you could build automation equipment here just as easy as Watertown...come on down!! 

[Jared]

> This little ATV trail was NOT fun on the 950. I thought it was a shortcut to where we wanted to go. This was as far as I made it before it got too soft/steep for the big 950.

Ya but you're bigger than us 650 guys so you should be able to throw that bigger bike around the same.

[Dratharr]

Great report, it was a blast thats for sure. I wish I could have been there this weekend, but right now I am nursing a cold, so it would have not been a good idea for me to come. I knew I was getting too wore down, I have been away from home for the last 5 weekends straight, I really needed a breather on this one! Bad timing!