South Dakota: 'death' hike

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Thunder rumbled across the dark, threatening sky. I studied the map with a perplexed look. 'It's that way', Aaron proclaimed. 'But', I protested 'when we left the main track the path was signed 6805, then we took a left, so now we must be on 6832 ... so we need to take a right'. 'Trust me', Aaron responded, 'that way's north.'


Aaron and I were on a hike in the Black hills National forest, South Dakota. We'd arrived in South Dakota the day before, after a few days road trip through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Nebraska.


We made it to South Dakota!


We've got some better buffalo photos later

Prairie dog

I'm pointing to where we're headed -  Pactola Reservoir

View of Black hills National forest, on our scenic drive on the day we arrived

Pactola Reservoir - The lake we camped by





The day after we arrived, we decided to go for a hike. At the visitors center I read about a nearby beautiful trial through a canyon and by a creek. So we drove to Silver city, then headed out on the Deerfield trial.

The trial followed Rapid creek, then later Slate creek





There were a few challenging creek crossings

It was a sunny day in July, during the school holidays, yet we only passed a few people. We enjoyed the peace and quite, however the trial being less well traveled did mean there were sections where we had to push our way through the undergrowth. When we reached Flannigan Cabin, our turn around point, Aaron suggested we make it a loop walk, taking dirt roads back instead of returning the way we came. This would make the return journey about twice as far, but it was along a track used by off road vehicles, so would be a clear wide path, and Aaron assured me more easy going.




Most of the forest was Ponderosa pine, but up in the hills we found a cluster of aspen (or birch I'm not quite sure)

So, we set-off on Spaw gulch. It was a distinct wide path, but more up-hill than I'd anticipated. After a while I began impatiently looking for our turning on the left. Soon, I was becoming convinced that we must have missed it, when we eventually found a track. However the track was not numbered with either of the two turnings on the left on our map. Instead it had the same number as a different track intersecting them. Regardless, it was going in the right direction, so we took it. When we came to the next intersection I tried to make sense of it from the map, which didn't seem to match up with what we saw. After previous misadventures (see - The 24 hour hike), we had invested in a good quality detailed national geographic map, but unfortunately either the map had a mistake or the roads were re-numbered. My attempts to follow the map led us to take a wrong turning and added about an extra mile to the walk. After a few intersections I was a bit bewildered and had forgotten if we turned left or right at the first intersection! Just then the sky darkened as the afternoon storm approached.

Afternoon storms are quite common - sometimes with lightening and hail, but usually very brief

We discovered the compass I had brought was not functioning, so we had been navigating with the sun, but with the clouds thickening, using the sun to guide us was not working so well. Luckily Aaron has a better sense of direction and memory of where we had been, so eventually convinced me on the right path. After a brief spell the storm rumbled by, the sky cleared and we headed back to Silver city.




Comments

MW said…
glad you did not have to spend the night on the ground as you did in Australia.
27 August 2017 at 17:02
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