Great short hike with spectacular views. Very steep with 1,200 ft in elevation gain in just a mile to the peak. Rock scramble near the top.
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One of the most beautiful trails in South Dakota! Easy train, beautiful creek in river to ride along. Eat lunch at the cabin!
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This is one of my favorite trails to horseback ride, the scenery is beautiful with lots of magnificent slate rock formations, Black Hills Spruce trees, and lots of history with an old log cabin ruin and the Hole in the Wall abandoned mine. It’s actually a 14 mile loop as I stopped the GPS for short distance.
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Not a hike for the great nature and scenery, but an incredible hike for history of old minds still some beautiful views no creeks or water so make sure you bring plenty. May want to consider some hard soul boots or shoes due to lots of nails and glass.
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Excellent loop ride…several creek crossings…a view point of Crazy Horse off in the distance.
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Rode out of Hell Canyon Horse Camp on a wonderful loop ride…took spur trail that took us out to the top of the bluff with great views.
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Awesome ride to the top of round mountain looked out saw our ranch and then rode a lot of the mountain log roads
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This is the top of Iron Mountain South Dakota. It a short walk to a monument at the top and when you turn around you see Mt Rushmore. Very cool. A bit more walking around gives you a couple more views. Nice stroll.
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Looking for chokecherries, but too late! 😢 Stopped at Nemo flag and then down to Merritt General Store for lunch. They were almost out of buns (Clint went bunless) and they forgot the order of the folks on the other end of the table.
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Rented UTV at Rushmore KOA. Great advice from the team working there. Beautiful sights, trails not exceeding class 2 (imo).
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Bike ride on the Mickelson Trail between Oreville Campground and Hill City, SD in the Black Hills National Forest.. Temperature was in the mid-60’s with light winds. Altitude was around 5,400’.
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This was one of my favorite trail rides so far on my trip here. Seeing Mt Rushmore from a distance was a super bonus.
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Great views on top w geocache. Go up the east side. Rock scramble on top.
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Awesome horseback riding trail. I rode counterclockwise on a Friday afternoon and there were 4 cars in parking lot and no other trailers. Saw several hikers. Ride was HOT in afternoon. Probably better to go early to avoid heat.
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Beautiful canyon trail right between Newcastle, Wyoming and Custer, South Dakota. Start on the right side trailhead for the valley of the canyon with beautiful trees and streams that will loop around to take you up onto the canyon ledge. Keep an eye out for big horn sheep! Hard hike but well worth it.
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Great trail! I don’t typically like out and back trails but this one was cool due to the creek crossings along the way. The dogs loved it too!
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Really great drive! Mostly achievable with any high clearance vehicle. Nothing technical. Pretty remote when you get pst the campground. Only saw a handful of other ATV’s. Incredible views in all directions from the lookout tower. Some of the most incredible wildflower fields I’ve ever seen.
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Long distance view and old gold mine ride from hells can horse camp.
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The Michalsen trail is compacted gravel and stretches 100 miles. This section goes through Hill City and well into the countryside to two old train tunnels cut through shale. Beautiful ride on slight upgrades and downgrades.
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One of my favorites in the Black Hills. We did this clockwise from the trailhead. This direction starts with a moderate to strenuous climb but after the first mile it’s an easy hike. Besides getting the climbing done first, an advantage of the clockwise route is some small streams at about mile 4.4 - a nice respite for the dog.
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The trails we have ridden are very beautiful. Easy to ride for the novice.
They tell me there are more challenging trails but we personally don’t want anything too steep. The GAIA GPS Maps have been Spot On & easy to follow. The staff at Hay Creek are great .. accommodating, friendly & extremely helpful.
This was a 6 day stop for us on our way to Mt. Rushmore.
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Tim and his wife, Galen and Ann, and Terry Mark and I all went for a ride with Tim leading us off-road everywhere! We needed to get home in time to beat this storm that is supposed to come this afternoon. The trail was awesome and then when we got back from the trail ride Mark and Terry and I went down the road with the dogs and down a really nice trail that was under a power line. So the dogs had good exercise today too
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We took our dogs out on this trail because it looks like it was short enough for them to be comfortable with this distance. There was an area in the middle of the trail about an hour in, they had so many downed trees and so many new saplings that it was hard to discover where we were. Otherwise the rest of the trail was just fine.
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Nice comfortable afternoon ride. Beautiful with nothing very challenging
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This was the best MTB ride I have ever done. The trail and views are absolutely stunning. Can’t wait to do it again!
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Pushed my Xterra to the limits for lost along the way. It was one heck of an adventure
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Nice fall day and awesome hike to abandon Empire Mine. Like others have stated it is not well marked but you really can’t get lost either. There is a trail but talking with wifey we walked right past a couple turns. Went back and got on course but come to find out it just made a loop anyway. We hiked 5 miles because I had to check out every hole in the ground that look like a pit mine.
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Definitely a good solid hike physically but not a lot in the way of views. Also a lot of road noise bc you’re basically walking between highway systems.
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The lake itself is very pretty but you don’t spend a lot of time there. The trail passes through a pine forest with some good views and interesting plant life.
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Mostly on trails or roads around some very pretty lakes with rocky outcrops in the Black Hills. The route passes by some picnic areas and a beach. There are a few sections where we went off-trail, the lengthiest one near the end when it started to rain. Start and end point from a dispersed campsite.
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This is the best ride for all the gorgeous views, not to be missed. Heaven is a must ride for your stay at Broken Arrow Horse Camp.
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Great trail that is best going in the clockwise direction because of the last leg of the trail coming up through a steep, rocky crevasse with handrails that are helpful on the way up.
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Beautiful ride with great views. In 2020, parts of the trail were fairly new so could be a little difficult to follow the route in some parts, but not to worry as route crosses county or forest service roads occasionally so hard to get lost. There are one or two fairly steep inclines with rocks and/or downed trees. One or two streams where horses can drink.
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We chose to go CCW. It was a good difficult climb but still very doable. Yes some of the trail had limbs growing over but could always easily see the trail. Took off 1 star due to the amount of people on the Black Elk Peak/Harney part of the trail. But once we passed the peak we almost had the trail all to ourselves. We aren’t the strongest or fastest hikers and we did take a few stops to eat and take pics, but this trail only took us a little over 6 hours.
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From Broken Arrow Horse Camp to the “Heaven” trail but never made it to the destination (weather) so turned back. Weather cleared so on returning, went down Glenn Erin Rd and took a few side trips off road (probably deer trails) to see views. Then back to camp. Non -gaited horses.
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This was on ATVs first part trail was good running second part was bumpy but with an awesome overlook of Nemo, trail 89 was technical but not too technical, definite trail to take again to go to the sugar shack!
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