During my first summer of mountain biking in the Black Hills I was choosing routes based on the BHNF or USGS topo maps, or on what little local knowledge I’d gathered. That changed sometime in the fall with our discovery of “A Mountain Biker’s Guide to the Black Hills, South Dakota and Wyoming” by Horning and Marriot. This self-published guide was a marvel of efficiency. Each ride was described on a single page and was illustrated on the reverse with a hand drawn route on top of a USGS topo base. The authors had clearly done a huge amount of riding covering the entire Black Hills. The authors were also highly skilled, as we discovered trying to duplicate their steep technical climbs, or follow their sometimes obscure routes through the meadows and forests.
The
book had a 1987 publication date so the information was fresh, and it gave us
riding ideas it would have taken years to develop on our own. There was plenty
of background information on biking and a section on some easier rides, but the
guts of the book was the detailed description of 28 rides covering every corner
of he range. Over my six years in the hills, I’d finish 12 of those trips and
ride parts of another six. Most of the other rides were in distal parts of the
southern hills, or coincided with established trails that I’d hike on foot. But
especially in the early stages of my riding, the guide was the bests source of
riding ideas.
The
Tinton/Cement Ridge ride was likely the first time we used the guide to plan
our ride. Tinton is an old mining town in the northwest part of the Black
Hills, west of Spearfish Canyon. Our route would be 18 mile loop, extending
west into Wyoming, and topping out at the Cement Ridge Fire tower. Bob and Dick
joined me for the ride.
Tinton/Cement Ridge mountain bike route, 1987
It
was an hour drive from Lead to the start at Beaver Crossing. We started riding
west on well-maintained BNHF 222. At the junction with BHNF 101 we turned right
and headed north for the Tinton townsite. We rode through the ghost town of
Tinton, then to an old building on the Wyoming side used as a landmark by our
guidebook. We reached the building in Mallory Gulch after about an hour of
riding. We had a tough descent to the bottom of the gulch before we reached a
better road near a small shack. Next, we started the harder riding, climbing
south along the upper reaches of Sand Creek.
Tinton
has been actively prospected for both gold and rare earth elements, and we rode
through active drilling being done by Moycorp on the Caldak group of claims. We
found the “town” of Welcome to be a single cabin owned by Molycorp.
Cement Ridge Tower, 1987.
After
about 2:30, and one thousand feet of climbing, we reached the tower on Cement
Ridge. To the northwest were views of Sundance Mountain and the Bearlodge
Mountains. Inyan Kara sat to our west, and Crow Peak loomed to the northeast. 
My Diamond Back Ascent EX near Cement Ridge.
After
enjoying the hard earned views, we descended down BHNF 867, which became BHNF
103 as we crossed back into South Dakota. We stopped at the next junction for
lunch then rode east on a grassy road shown only on our mountain biking guide.
The guide would go on to lead us astray on several grassy “roads”, but this was
one time when the route was easy to follow, at least to the next junction. Here
we went left instead of right and ended up on BHNF 222 near Sanger Ranch. But
it was just a quick trip down to Beaver Creek, where we picked up the trail.
Most of the return route to Beaver Crossing was part of Snowmobile Trail #3. We
would often find the snowmobile trails better marked than the BHNF roads. The
ride took five hours for 18 miles, and we saw no one else the entire time.
The original Cement Ridge Fire Lookout was built between 1911 and 1913 as part of a wave of tower construction following the 1910 Great Fire which burned three million acres of northern Idaho and Montana. Originally, it was a one-room log cabin with a shingle roof. In 1921, a crow’s nest with a glassed-in house was constructed. The crow’s nest was removed in the spring of 1940 and replaced by the current lookout built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1941. The lookout was refurbished in 1974, and was listed on the National Historic Lookout Register on December 30, 1993.It is one of only five active fire towers remaining in the Black Hills.
10-2-92,
Cement Ridge Run, 5 miles
I
would make only one more trip to Cement Ridge. In late 1992 I was working hard
on the first edition of my Black Hills trail guide. A small part of the guide
was an appendix on the important summits in the Black Hills and wanted another
look at Cement Ridge. For this trip I drove up BHNF 222 and parked near the
state line at the head of Potato Creek. I ran south, then followed BHNF 103,
then 867 up to the tower. Surprisingly, the tower was staffed, and I learned
that on exceptionally clear days the Bighorns Mountain were visible to the
west. I could see Warren Peak, the Bearlodge Mountains, and Inyan Kara to the
west, and Crow Peak, Spearfish Peak, Mt. Roosevelt, Old Baldy, and Terry Peak
to the east. The entire area seemed grazed by cattle, though I still saw a half
dozen deer. The South Dakota side was being marked for a timber sale. My notes
show times of 27:50 for the climb and 22:30 for the descent on the 5 mile round
trip run.
1192 Cement Ridge run route in yellow.
