A weekend in the Black Hills of South Dakota

Crazyjeeper

NickGyver
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
8,020
Location
Dallas, TX
Car(s)
F150, CJ7, Mustang GT, Tenere, Griso
What better way to celebrate the independence of your country than by looking at faces blasted into mountains with dynamite? It also helps there are miles and miles of fabulous twisty roads. With that in mind I decided to take a quick 4 day jaunt south to the black hills.

Day 1 - Williston, ND to Spearfish SD via the Devil's Tower.

July 4th dawned a clear and sunny day with just a light breeze, also known as perfect moto traveling weather. Now, I am not a morning person, so after a leisurely morning I left town at the crack of 10:30 and headed south.

Highway between Baker, MT and Ekalaka, MT
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Medicine Rocks State Park
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Some more information here for you geology nuts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Rocks_State_Park

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Ekalaka contains the very cool colonial style Carter County Courthouse
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I can see for miles and miles...
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Devil's Tower
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Day 2 - Spearfish to Custer via Badlands National park

Now it was time to start seeing some new ground. I had previously been in the Black Hills area only once before, when I was about 5 years old. My only memory is of being on a twisty tree lined highway and not being able to see a thing other than trees. I had also never ever been to badlands national park so I decided to spend the day and check it out. I left spearfish and took US-14alt into the black hills, through deadwood and then down to Sturgis. I was hoping to check out the Sturgis Yamaha/BMW/Suzuki/Husqvarna/whatever dealer but they were closed for the holiday weekend. After a quick stop in Rapid City for some lunch I hit the badlands. Now, it had gotten pretty warm that morning, but in the afternoon the temps rocketed up. The highest I saw on the display on my Super Tenere was 104F and it sure felt it. Being a native Texan I am used to dealing with heat, but it was starting to wear on me so I decided to try out some moto air conditioning. A splash of cold water on my synthetic t-shirt and I was almost getting chills the evaporation was working so well. Coupled with some water in my cloth backed Klim Dakar gloves I was very comfortable the whole day even creeping at 35mph through the park.

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A very nice couple from Minnesota on Harley-Davidson's stopped at one of the overlooks and offered to take my picture.
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Taking the gravel back way out of the park
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Day 3 - Custer to Hot Springs via Crazy Horse, Mt. Rushmore, Hwy 16a and Hwy 87 (twice!)

After the scorcher yesterday down in the badlands I was looking forward to staying up in the Black Hills all day. Also, living in the oil patch in western North Dakota, you really don't get much of a chance to ride twisty roads. Time to see if I can un-square my tires a little bit.

The first stop was just a few minutes north of Custer at Crazy Horse.
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I had never been to this particular monument before. The story behind it and the scale of it are both quite something. I won't go into all of the details but I found it to be a very worthwhile stop.

Next up I did a quick drive-by of Mt. Rushmore then stopped for some lunch in Keystone.
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This is always a good way to start a ride.
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Trees and curves
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Can't forget the cool 1 lane tunnels
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What's that between the trees?
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Why, it's Mt. Rushmore!
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Next up was Hwy 87, the Needles Hwy, noted for it's massive granite spires.
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And lots of lovely hairpins
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More 1 lane tunnels
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Then, on the south of the highway, there is, up a 1 mile gravel road, the best view I saw all weekend from Coolidge point.
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The pictures do not fully convey how far you could see. I could see the edge of the hills and the plains stretch out for miles and miles.
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The Tenere among the minivans. This was the only place in the black hills devoid of Harleys. :lol:
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Cool stone tower
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More of the view
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Then I passed through Wind Cave National Park
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Which had some nice curvy roads as well
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And some bison
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All in all an awesome day. One of my favorite days of riding ever.

Day 4 - Hot Springs to Williston

Well, the fun was over, time to turn back north and set the sat nav for home. I stopped real quick in Sturgis for some pics.
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This will be a very different scene in a few weeks.
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As soon as I got north of Belle Fouche, the winds started to pick up. I spent the next 4 hours fighting 20-30mph crosswinds with gusts higher than that. Once I got north of I-94, things got ever worse. Thunderstorms were popping up everywhere and there is nowhere to hide out on the open prairies. I managed to dodge the first one that I saw, but with the second, I wasn't so lucky. The weather very quickly went from 20mph winds to 50mph, such that I nearly got blown off the road. This wind was accompanied by massive amounts of driving rain bringing visibility way down. Luckily this only lasted for a few minutes as they were very scattered thunderstorms. As I rode on, I saw that I was about to go into another, but there was something different. I could see the curtain of rain go from dark to light and then back to dark across the highway, like there was a thin spot where the rain was much lighter. Luck would have it the highway went right through that spot and I avoided the worst of it. I rolled into Watford City just as another storm rumbled by but it only just sprinkled. I figured to ensure that I wouldn't hit any more rain I would switch to my waterproof gloves and lo and behold it worked perfectly! I made it the last 45 miles back to Williston under sunny skies in heavy traffic in about an hour.

Back home in the driveway
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I hope you enjoyed reading this and checking out the pictures. I really enjoyed this run down to the black hills and I look forward to returning to the area again.

Total Mileage for the weekend:
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Oh, I almost forgot, can't go to sturgis without getting a t-shirt, so I grabbed this one. :lol:
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Can't say I've seen a sign like that before. Man I gotta get an Adventure bike one of these days...

I really dig the shirt though!
 
Can't say I've seen a sign like that before. Man I gotta get an Adventure bike one of these days...

I really dig the shirt though!

You know, used Super Teneres are getting below $10,000 now....
 
consider me jelly! the possibility of trips like this always make me want to get a motorcycle license, because in a car, it'd just be half as awesome.
 
I would have died of boredom on the first day, judging from your pictures. Lack of curves is nbot healthy. :D But the landscape looks really awesome. :)

@ eizbaer: Just do it. You've got the Eifel on your doorstep...
 
@ eizbaer: Just do it. You've got the Eifel on your doorstep...

i know, right :D at the moment it's mainly a money-issue. i'm totally annoyed at myself for not getting the license back with my car-license... :mad:
 
There's G O L D in them thar' hills I tell yer, now all we have to do is a quick bit of ethnic cleansing 'and and and then' the G O L D is ours.

Seriously though, you can see why the Native Americans wanted to live there is gorgeous.
 
You sir are living my dream, awesome trip!
 
Woohoo! Looks like an awesome trip CJ. :) Thanks for posting the writeup - the Black Hills sound awesome!
 
Well it's been 15 months but I finally finished the music and editing for the time lapse I took on this trip.


Watch on YouTube for 1080p HD.
 
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