Pinnacles Backpack, Badlands NP, 10-19-91

This backpacking trip was prompted by a discovery made on my prior trip to the Badlands. In April 1990 I’d spent a weekend in the Badlands with Craig and Stacey. On Saturday we’d hiked the Castle Trail, which was now familiar to us. On Sunday we did some exploring, first going through a magnificent area where we found abundant fossils. Later in the day we stopped at Pinnacle, the overlook where the park road meets the Badlands Wall, and that serves as the introduction to the park for most visitors. Pinnacle has a sheer drop down the wall to the basin below. But it is composed of several slump blocks, each capped with trees that are able to tap groundwater collected in the open spaces of the broken ground in the slump.

On the Castle Trail, BNP.

On the earlier trip Craig was able to find a route down to the trees from the overlook. The route began at the very east end of the parking lot, just past the introduction sign for the park (these landmarks may have changed with improvements to the overlook over the last 30 years). The gully was steep, narrow, and filled with trash from the overlook. The route involved a tricky exit from the gulley, a traverse down a steep slope of gumbo, and a finish through junipers atop one of the slump blocks.

Fossil hunting in the Badlands.

I was confident that I could follow Craig’s route again and wanted to explore more in the rugged terrain below the overlook. I originally recruited several hikers for the trip, but only Don and I were able to make it. This would be Don’s first backpacking trip.

We selected the correct gully at the top and thrashed our way toward the junipers. There were a few tricky jumps in the gulley, but eventually we reached the junipers on the west end, and worked our way to the base of the wall. I was sketching our route on a field sheet, so am still able to roughly follow our route for the trip. We both were taking pictures. Don had just gotten a new camera.

Descending the gully from Pinnacles Overlook.

At the bottom of the wall, we took a break beside a sod table and were surprised to realize that we were only about a ¼ mile from the overlook. The overlook would remain in view, our reference point all day long. 

Below Pinnacles Overlook.

We set up a base camp in a juniper grove with a small wall on its other side. Coincidently, we were not far from where I’d camped with Nitro on our Thanksgiving backpacking trip in 1988. We headed upstream (east) to look for the area where I’d spotted bighorn sheep on the ’88 trip. On a whim we hiked up a side gulley to the south and ended up at the west end of Deer Haven, surprising us both.

The Badlands Wall near Deer Haven.

We then hiked further east across the base of Deer Haven. We were able to get to its east end where we were blocked by a prominent gulley, maybe the same one from 1988. We then looped south, then west gradually circling the head of the bowl, and exploring some great side gullies. One of the gullies was overhanging, so we had to slide through holding ourselves at a 60 degree angle. Much like the red rock canyon country of the southwest, the real action here is in the side canyons.

Exploring near Deer Haven.

Eventually we worked our way back to our initial overlook above Deer Haven. We decided to head back to camp by staying on the ridge that had been south of our camp. Soon we found two coats stashed under rocks on a small knob. The coats looked dry and therefore recently placed. Then we found some fresh tracks. Soon we found Loren Chapman (from Minnesota) and his son. He told us that he had been hiking in the Badlands since 1957, and had never seen another party. They had started at the farm below Deer Haven. This was also the only time I ever saw another person off trail in the Badlands.

As it turned out the drainage we were following didn’t intersect the one we were camped by, and it took a long detour to reach camp. We weren’t sure we had turned at the correct drainage, and started getting nervous about being lost in the jumbled terrain. Part of the “Bad” in Badlands is that the topography makes no sense at all, and is insanely complex. But luckily we found camp by 5PM, and even spotted two bison along the way.

We’d had a great time exploring the gullies, and had some extra time to enjoy the clear calm evening. Don had found a stone scrapper, ¼ of a fossil jawbone, and a six point deer antler, which he found useful as a climbing tool. At nearly every turn we found something interesting. I relished the uncertainty of every turn. Would a gully go to the top? Can you cross that plateau without being blocked by an unseen cliff? Poking your way into the remote corners of such a wild and untraveled place is what wilderness is all about. In the Badlands so much is compressed into a small area. We were likely never more than two miles from the overlook all day.

I slept out of the tent to enjoy the view, and ended up curled down in my sleeping bag all night. My stove was working this time, so I enjoyed hot meals. The next morning before leaving camp we explored a north side gully near camp. We climbed one steep divide ridge, but did not find the type of overhanging meanders that we’d seen the prior day.

Much of the floor of our basin was at the contact between the Chadron and Brule formations. Once we climbed out of the main drainage we were walking along this floor. It is strewn with silicified cobbles, haystacks, and sharp ridges of Brule gumbo. We found a few fossils, possibly discarded by other visitors, then dropped our packs to look for more. The extra fossil hunting wasn’t productive, but we found some steep gumbo slopes to scree/ski/slide down.

Sliding down a bentonite slope.

We planned to exit the basin west of the Pinnacles, but we strayed far enough east to recognize our entrance drainage. The sure route back was too good to pass up. We climbed to the slump block, and found it best to stay close to the cliff edge to avoid bashing through the trees. Eventually, we found a place to climb up to the road level, just below the east side of Pinnacles Overlook. I could get all the way up without my back, but there was a 6-foot high wall that we couldn’t climb with packs.

We ended up using a rope to haul our packs across the steep gully that marked the east end of the slump block. Going uphill the jump across the gully is much harder. The climb was rough, but made worse by an audience of tourists at the overlook.

Sage Creek Basin.

Driving home we went via the Sage Creek Campground and through the town of Scenic to scout the west end of the Badlands Wall. We spotted bighorn sheep 75 yards from the road, but did not see any bison. We determined that once west of the Pinnacles, one could descend to the Sage Creek Basin almost anywhere down the wall. Prime areas for other visits looked like just east of Sage Creek Pass and the areas from Antler Butte east to the Pinnacles.

Badlands NP, Pinnacles BP.

I would do one more round of off trail Badlands hiking before moving away. The next March I spent parts of two days exploring the rugged badlands just east of the Door Trail in the developed area of the park. I have notes, but no map, of those trips. This was another concentration of steep gullies to challenge my scrambling skills. I was able to hike east out to Rake Creek and back and found the markers a search and rescue  group had used to keep track of the gullies that they had checked on a recent mission.

Custer State Park, Bear Gulch-Grace Coolidge MB ride, 10-5-91

This is another ride I got from my trusty copy of the Horning and Marriott’s “Mountain Bikers Guide to the Black Hills.” I headed down to Custer Park for a short ride, hoping to have enough time to add a quick trip to the nearby 7,000’ peak I had recently discovered. (Sylvan Peak Link)

I started the ride about 10AM at its alternate trailhead at the Black Hills Playhouse Road (BHNF 753), in the northern part of Custer Park. I rode the loop counterclockwise, so the first couple miles were on the gravel Playhouse Road, and then the paved road through the Center Lake Campground Area. Then I rode down the old two track road that is the Grace Coolidge Walk-in fishing area trail. This area is now a hiking trail, but was open to mountain bikes in 1991. The Grace Coolidge Trail has 14 shallow unbridged creek crossings, none of which were a problem in the dry September weather. Tracks here included both bikes and elk.

Grace Coolidge Creek in 2023.

By 11 AM I was at the picnic area on US 16A at the south end of the Grace Coolidge Trail, ready to begin the challenging east half of the loop. While the first half of the ride had been on roads and easy two track, the east half of the loop would go through little used backcountry in Custer Park. This was also just three years after the Galena Fire which had burned through much of the park, incinerating or killing huge swaths of the Custer forests.

USGS Galena Fire Map.

The route started up an old jeep road, and was immediately in the Galena Burn. About a half mile in there is an old substation at a powerline crossing. The route description mentioned fences beyond this point, but I did not see them. Potentially these were burned in the fire. Beyond a small saddle with a cement foundation, the route was clogged with downed trees from the fire.

Approaching Bear Gulch, the guidebook route veers out of the small draw to go north over saddle 4,443’. But despite a warning in the guidebook, I missed this turn, pushing my mileage total for the day to 12.6. I stayed along the floor of the gulch until the intersection with Bear Gulch, then turned north upstream to return to the guidebook route near the junctions of the north and south forks. I was then able to follow the jeep trail all the way back to my truck parked on the Playhouse Road. The 6.8 miles of the east half of the ride took about 3 hours. Not bad, for hiking pace. I saw one bison along the way. I really liked the ride, but made a note to stay out of the burn on future rides. The complete area was mapped as 100% timber kill by the USGS.

The jeep trails were washed out in the upper part of Bear Gulch, presumably one of the aftereffects of the Galena Fire. But this area was really pretty, with lots of granite pinnacles, and the leaves just starting to change color. This is one of those rides where I wish I’d kept more detailed notes, rather than just riding the loop.

 Much of the park has healed in the 30 years since the fire, and the forest should once again be ready to explore. The east half of the loop would certainly warrant a visit on foot, and there seems great potential for off-trail hiking loops, including going from Center Lake east across the South Fork of Bear Gulch. 

1991Ride Map.

Sylvan Peak and the Black Hills 7,000 footers, 10-5-91

Early in my time in South Dakota I became interested in climbing the peaks of the Black Hills. During my first tour in 1982, I was focused on the field work that would support my master’s thesis, and didn’t get outdoors nearly as much as I would have liked. But my old slides show two different trips to Black Elk Peak (then Harney Peak). In 1987, when I returned for a six year stint, I quickly took up mountain biking to supplement my running and hiking. In Horning and Marriot’s “Mountain Biker’s Guide to the Black Hills” I discovered routes to many of the 7,000 footers, especially those on the Limestone Plateau. The longer bike rides seemed much more sporting routes than what would otherwise been long drives to access short strolls to the peaks.

Black Elk Peak in 1982.

Crook’s Tower (Crooks Tower) in 1987 was my first serious mountain bike ride. Later that summer I rode to the top of Odakota and Bear mountains. At the end of ‘87 I again used the MB’ers guide to make a late season ride to Crows Nest Peak. It seems unusual to have waited a year to climb nearby Terry Peak, but my records don’t show my first visit until June ’88, again on a mountain bike ride.

Bear Mountain, 1987.

For a while the 7,000 footer list sat dormant, until I found another project. This time my goal was getting to all the active and abandoned fire tower sites in the Black Hills. There was plenty of map examining to do as that part of the project, but it yielded some interesting results. Green Mountain (unnamed on the USGS quad) had a just barely 200’ saddle with Odakota, its neighbor to the south. At 7164’, that meant Green qualifies as a 7,000 footer. On 3-30-91 I made a late season ski trip that covered both summits. My next discovery was even more interesting.

Green Mountain from 7,159, 1991

West of Black Elk Peak is a small range bounded by U.S.16 and South Dakota 89, and anchored by Buckhorn Mountain on the south and St. Elmo Peak to the north. St Elmo is the highest named point and I hiked it in September of 1991. But looking carefully at the map I also saw an unnamed peak south of St Elmo just breaking 7,000’. The peak had a long north ridge that would provide a 1,400’ climb.

Sylvan and St. Elmo Peaks.

On 10-5-91 I headed down to the southern hills. For most of the day I rode the 10.8 mile Grace Coolidge and Bear Gulch mountain bike ride as described in the Mountain Biker’s Guide. I was done before 3PM, and decided to give the new 7,000’ peak a shot.

The north ridge proved as exciting as it had looked on the map. Most of the north slope had been logged, and there was plenty of downed timber, but not enough to ruin the walking. There were great views toward Black Elk Peak and Sylvan Lake, and especially of the climbing area known as the Outlets. I crossed one old logging road, and made a side scramble to the top of a false peak. After crossing one other faint logging road and a shallow saddle I was at the summit. There was only a small cairn to mark the top, and no other evidence of previous hikers. I enjoyed more summit views before returning the same way.

St Elmo Peak from Sylvan Peak, 1991.

The peak was a great edition to the first edition of my guide. As the high point of its own subrange, I felt it deserved a name, and called it “Sylvan Peak” in honor of the great views of Sylvan Lake. The name was adopted on the 1996 Black Hills National Forest map and is shown on later editions. The name doesn’t yet appear on USGS maps, and is not approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. I don’t know if the BHNF map makers used “Sylvan Peak” because the name was used in my guide, or if someone else was equally inspired in their peak naming, but I hope name becomes official.

“Sylvan Peak” is also the highest point in Custer County. This distinction has earned the attention of a dedicated group of peak baggers called the County Highpointers. As their name implies, members devote their energies to reaching the high points of various counties, usually within a state or region. Trip reports on their website (cohp.org) describe a shorter and easier route to the summit via the southeast ridge. This route starts where a dirt road leaves the west side of South Dakota 87, 0.9 north of the South Dakota 87/89 junction, or 2.1 miles south of the start of the north ridge route. I hiked this route on 9-8-04, it is shorter, but less scenic than the north ridge.

Bear Mountain Tower, 2007.

Sylvan Peak also upped the number of Black Hills 7,000 footers to eight, the number that is still generally accepted today if you poke around online. Some sources don’t include Green Mountain, but there is consensus on the other seven peaks. For my hiking guide I tried to compile a list of “worthy” peaks that includes the 7,000 footers, summits with towers or former tower sites, mountains with maintained trails, and peaks on the Wyoming side of the range and in the Bearlodge mountains. My list has 39 peaks, with Sundance Mountain (on private land) being the only one I haven’t been able to climb.

John on Terry Peak, 1987.

Online it appears that the 7,000 footers have been climbed by a modest number of people, though there is no central source for this information. Here’s a summary of my Black Hills 7,000 footer climbs.

Bob on Odakota Mountain, 1987.

 

Height            Name                         Date                Type   # of Ascents

7,242              Black Elk Peak         ?-?-82            Hike             19

7,200              Odakota Mountain   8-16-87          Bike                2

7,166              Bear Mountain         8-16-87          Bike                4

7,164              “Green Mountain”    3-30-91          Ski                  1

7,137              Crooks Tower           6-12-87          Bike                2

7,064              Terry Peak                6-19-88          Bike                11

7,048              Crows Nest  Peak    12-6-87          Bike                2

7,000              “Sylvan Peak”           10-5-91          Hike                3

 

Here’s a link to a report on trip to climb all the 7,000 footers in a day self-supported. https://www.southdakotamagazine.com/black-hills-eight-over-seven