After moving to the Black Hills in February, it didn’t take me too long to get interested in mountain biking. Luckily, I was part of a group of a small group that had recently moved to the hills, and had similar interests in the outdoors. At that time there weren’t many established trails for hiking, but stuffed into the million plus acres of the Black Hills National Forest were an amazing number of old roads. There was also much less ATV traffic back then, and most of these old roads were little used.
Some
of the others were more familiar with mountain biking and realized what
tremendous opportunities for riding we had. I decided to give it a try and went
to the Two Wheeler Dealer in Spearfish and bought a Diamond Back Ascent EX.
Mountain bikes are much evolved since then, so that bike has more in common
with today’s road bikes then with modern mountain bikes. My new bike had a
rigid chrome moly frame with a road bike geometry. The chain rings were oval
(to allow more power generation on the down stroke), an innovation that didn’t
last long. But basically, the knobby tires were the only thing that made it
look like a mountain bike.
My Diamond Back mountain bike at Cement Ridge in 1987.
I
assume I’d already taken a few test rides from my apartment in Lead, I remember
one bumpy journey down an old railbed with the tracks still in place. But, I
hadn’t taken a real ride until I got a chance to go out with Bob, who at the
that time was the most experienced rider in our group. We had not yet
discovered our revered “Mountain Bikers Guide to the Black Hills” by Horning
and Marriott so where to go was the big question. We settled on a trip to
Crooks Tower, not too far off the road to O’Neil Pass, probably attracted by
its status as a 7,000’ peak.
We
knew the main gravel roads in the BHNF were usually in great shape and decided
to drive in from the pass and park at the junction of BHNF roads 231 and 117.
We’d ride a short loop to the tower, and then could add some gravel road if we
wanted to extend the ride.
Our 1987 mountain bike route to Crooks Tower.
Much
of our riding in those early days was on remote two track roads. I preferred
the smoother surfaces with the rigid frame bike, and there were few trails to
ride anyway. Much of the fun was in simply exploring the Black Hills and going
new places, and we covered much more terrain than was possible by hiking or
even running. The freedom of speeding through country always kept us coming
back for another ride.
We
started our ride from the junction of BHNF roads 231 and 117, and started with
a modest loop, with Crooks Tower on the far end. We rode about a half mile
south on BHNF 117, then turned left onto 117-4B, and made another left at the
next junction. This section of road was overgrown, but took us to tiny, and dry,
Crooks Lake in 3.7 miles in about an hour according to my bike odometer. From
the lake we took the spur road to the top of the peak. At the top we could see
Cement Ridge to the north, and Bear Mountain and Harney (now Black Elk) Peak to
the south.
We
returned to the lake and then rode north downhill on BHNF 189 to the junction
with BHNF 231. Despite the overgrowth on Road 4B approaching the lake, all was
going well, and I was still feeling strong on the bike. It was really fun just
to be rolling along and seeing so much terrain, so we decided to add a side
trip. On 231, we turned right to go east nearly four miles to the junction with
BHNF 206. This was another gentle ride on a maintained gravel road. From the
turnaround at the BHNF 206 junction we returned to our parking spot by riding
west on BHNF 231 for a total of 15.5 miles. After we had first left 231 we saw
no other people, but did spy two groups of whitetail deer.
I
would go onto many more mountain bike rides in the Hills in the six years that
I lived there, without coming close to exhausting all the places to ride. Our saying
was that in the Black Hills there was a road on every ridge, one in every
valley, and most likely another on the slope between them. And things were
about to get even better. The BHNF would soon go on to era of trail building,
including the 110 mile+ Centennial Trail, and most of these new builds would be
open to bikes. Later SD Game, Fish, and Parks would complete the Mickelson rail
trail, providing a gentler long distance route for riders.
One of my other pursuits was to hike to all the summits over 7,000 feet in the Black Hills. That goal involves some parsing of “summit”, but Crooks Tower certainly qualified, and after Harney (now Black Elk) Peak, was the top of the list. Many of the other 7,000’ summits that qualified were also on the Limestone Plateau, and to make those peaks more of a challenge I tried to ski to several of them.
3-2-91,
Crooks Tower, Cross-country Ski
Solo,
~15 miles, 6 hours
This
was my only other trip to Crooks Tower. My notes call it not “one of my better plans”.
I’d hope to drive up BHNF 231 to the junction with Snowmobile Trail 2 and then
follow the route of my 1987 mountain bike ride to the start to Crooks Tower. But
I couldn’t drive BHNF 231 as it was part of the Snowmobile Trail network. I
should have avoided the area entirely as O’Neill Pass was probably the most
popular area in the region for snowmobiling.
Instead,
I parked near the highway junction, skied a bit along the road to avoid the
snowmobile trail, and then turned due south to reach BHNF 231. The road was
covered with tracks, but I didn’t see many machines until I reached the 231/117
junction after about 1:15. I went south on BHNF117 (also SMB 6), and then
turned off it early and “explored” a small gully before realizing my error.
Back on track I realized the overgrown road I remembered from my mountain bike
ride was now SMB 6, and I wouldn’t lose the SMB traffic until the tower. I
skied up the road as fast as I could, dodging both the snowmobiles and the
impressively huge trail groomer.
I’d
hoped to make it to the tower for lunch, but got hungry early and stopped just
before the start of the spur road. The SMB tracks led nearly to the summit,
which I reached at about three hours. The views were still good. I could see
Flag Mountain to the south and Cement Ridge to the north. The tower had more
presence than I remembered from 1987, especially compared to other “summits” on
the Limestone Plateau. Temperatures were above freezing so I could linger and
enjoy a full lunch. The softer midday snow would be too sticky to really enjoy
the downhill skiing to come.
I
essentially retraced my route back home, but with a detour west of Crooks Lake on
the ridge to the north to try to lose the noise of the snowmobile traffic. I
tried to follow a ridgeline to the west, but ended up dropping back down to SMB
6 sooner than I’d hoped. I put up with the noise for a mile beyond the 231/117
junction, then was able to finish my trip in peace. I was back at the car after
6 hours of skiing, I saw three women skiing near the pass, one of whom I
recognized from the Spearfish Challenge. I also saw a pair from North Dakota
trying out snowshoes.
My 1991 cross-country ski trip (in yellow) to Crooks Tower.
