After the House boat trip, we had some time to go exploring with our gravel bikes. We looked at some options between Arizona and South Dakota. The 10 day forecast of South Dakota won hands down. The beginning of the week though there was temps in the mid to high 80’s. Not our kind of bike riding weather. I pulled out the map and up popped Devils Tower, It had camping and the fall scenery was superb . We headed that way and ended up staying for a couple of days.

We hadn’t been here for years, so it was good to appreciate its beauty again. A Japanese artist had made a sculpture close to the campground. We walked to the site and checked it our

We headed up the trail to circumnavigate the tower, A nice trail with quite the views. By noon the temperature was HOT. We escaped the heat by hanging out in the shade by the van. Time was spent reading and doing some research on the Mickelson Trail. A rain storm was predicted for late morning. We have a tentative plan of doing some biking in the morning if the weather holds. The wind blows hard during the night and it is accompanied with thunder and lighting .

The next morning though, it is just overcast. We quickly assembled our bikes and headed up towards the tower. It is the first time being on our bikes since the Spring so we are looking forward to being back in the saddle. Fortunately since it is early there are very few cars on the road. We take several dirt roads and get different angles of the Tower,

We are looking forward to bike riding in the next couple of days.

After riding about 10 miles we return to the van, put the bikes away and do some exercises before heading to Spearfish SD.

Yesterday when I was reading about the area I learned about a 26 mile round trip bike ride up Spearfish Canyon. It was recommended for a fall bike ride. We thought we would check it out tomorrow. First we got our oil changed and then headed to the City Park to spend the night. We were happy to find out that the trail to go up the canyon started here. A little stream flowed by our van and was occupied by wood ducks.

The next morning we packed a lunch, put our bikes together and moved to the trail head. Today the ride will be all on pavement except for the last couple of miles that end at a waterfall.

There was a large berm, so even though there was a lot of traffic, it felt quite safe.

A sign on the road said beware of Mountain Goats on the road. It was correct, we got to see quite a few enjoying the sunny day.

They seemed docile, but wouldn’t want to get too close.

The Spearfish Canyon ride was enjoyable. The incline going up wasn’t too bad, and the return ride was all down hill. Tomorrow we head to Deadwood and check out the start of the Mickelson Trail.

The last couple of days we realize how long the nights are if you are in your tent. We had originally thought that we might bike pack the Mickelson Trail, but now our thought is to do up and back each day. We will shuttle our van each morning and do long rides and enjoy seeing the trail in both directions. Last night we parked at Steel Wagon campground. A nice place with hot showers and good internet.

We got up, packed our lunch, and headed to the Trail Head. This trail is one of the top ten rails to trails.

The Trail leaving Deadwood was mostly up hill till we approached the town of Lead. Once we got to the top it was mostly more gradual up and downs. Approximately every 10 miles there is a rest spot, that often had water or at least some shade.

Towns or a supply station was located here to service the train,

Often there were informational boards describing what one was looking at.

Glad there was a description to go along with why the roof was done in this way

We were enjoying the fall colors and great temperatures for the ride today.

We rode by fields and old ranch houses.

When we arrived to the first tunnel we went thru it and decided to turn around. Tomorrow we plan to drive to another trail head and will return to this point.

Some of the signs tell us about why this area was known for gold mining.

On the return journey back to our van we passed this railroad sign.

We can see why this trail is in the top 10 rails to trails in the US

We also took a side road to check out a spiritual Sanctuary. We had read about it and decided to check it out. Unfortunately we still had some miles to go before we got back to our van. There was a hiking trail that one could take but it was suggested to spend at least an hour to do it. We spent some time looking at the sculptures at the start of the trail and reading about them. Not knowing how long it would take to get back, we decided to not do the whole trail.

When we left this place we were pleasantly surprised by the long down hill we encountered. The miles flew by and soon we were at Lead and another long downhill took us back to Deadwood and our van. Once again we realized that a 3 percent up hill grade isn’t that hard to peddle, but you can sure pick up speed going downhill.

We took a screen shot of our ride on strava today.

Back to the campground to take showers and plan for tomorrow’s ride.

It is a cold morning with some frost on the window. Our decision to do shuttles rather than bike pack seems appropriate. We head to Hill City where we will ride north to where we turned around yesterday. The mileage should be about the same. By the time we get to the trail head the sun has turned the cool air to warm and we unload our bikes. We learn that there is going to be a race on the trail tomorrow so we will make a new plan for tomorrow. Today though looks beautiful and we have been told that this is a beautiful section. There is advantages of seeing it twice. We generally don’t mind doing up and backs.

Todays ride is generally mellow hills and drops. There are also a lot of trestles and tunnels.

There are also a lot of E bikes. In fact at one of the rental bike shops in town they only had electric bikes.

When the rails were being built there was always a decision to be made about going over, going around or going thru. On this section it seemed that going thru was often the first choice.

We have to agree that today’s ride was very scenic.

For most of the day that trail was quite wide and had an excellent surface. We had lunch where we had turned around yesterday. Our mileage today is close to 50 again.

Upon arriving back to Hill City, we decide that before going to a campground we should experience the fudge and ice cream that this town is advertising. It is delicious, but later we decided that we had probably overdone the sweets. We camped at a forest service campground called Comanche camp. The main campground is closed, but there are 6 sites for first come campers . We felt fortunate to get the last site and decide to spend tomorrow night here as well. It is a very peaceful site.

In the morning we head to the small town of Prinkle.

There is a nice trail head here with water and bathrooms.

There is also a mountain of bicycles. We joked and said this is where all the non electric bikes are retired.

This town has a sense of humor, a mile down the trail was this sculpture.

This section had some very nice shelters.

This shelter also had water and a bike tool station.

This section was also relatively flat so we decided to go further to make our last day shorter.

It is back to Prinkle, load up the van with our bikes and head back to Comanche Forest Service camp. Tomorrow we head back to Hill City where we will ride the section that had the race.

We left The campground when it was still dark. We had a drive to get to Hill City and we also knew that there was a long uphill today.

A sign documented the building of this trail. We sure have enjoyed and p[an on doing more of these trails.

We hit this mile maker which is the half way point, but since we are doing all sections twice we have now ridden close to 100 miles. There is a mile marker every two miles.

A hot day meant that we were wearing our debrim hats for shade.

The trail was a steady up as we approached the Crazy Horse Monument.

We also passed some original artifacts from the railroad era.

Full on fall!

And then we saw the sign, we were close to the top.

In the distance we saw the rock sculpture of Crazy Horse. Donna had visited this sculpture over 50 years ago. There has been a lot of progress since then, but there is still a lot to do.

Once reaching the top it was a steady downhill to the town of Custer where we had our lunch and prepared ourselves for the up hill climb. To our surprise it didn’t seem that steep and soon we were back to the top and heading down hill to Hill City. We had completed our ride by 2. (only 33 miles today) We drove back to Custer and decided to check out Custer State Park. We were going to check the road out for a potential ride thru the park, but after seeing that it was a narrow 2 lane road with no shoulders we opted not to do it.

Upon arriving back to Custer we took a couple of photos of the buffaloes that were almost at each street corner.

They must have used this buffalo as the model.

We headed to the grocery store and then to a campground in town where we could take showers and catch up on some reading. Tomorrow we have decided to head to Wind Cave National park and do a hike instead of a ride.

It was a slow morning as we had a leisurely breakfast before heading off to Wind Cave. The covid protocols were were in full enforcement so rather than doing any park activities we decided to go check out the centennial trail. The centennial trail can be hiked or biked. it didn't take us long to figure out that we would not be biking it. it was a hot day and we were glad that we had our umbrellas for shade.

We ended up sharing the trail with free ranging buffaloes. They had the right of way so we took a large off trail route to avoid them. When we got to a turn around point and had some lunch I discovered that one of my trekking poles had fallen from my pack. I figured that we just had to retrace our steps, unfortunately the buffalo had also changed their positions and we were unable to retrace our steps so they had the access to my pole.

it was a nice hike and a nice change of pace from biking.

We headed to Edgemont which is the end or start of the Mickelson Trail.

We arrived to the campground which we will be staying tonight and tomorrow.

It was a self service community campground with a nice hot shower.

It was a hot evening, we will plan to start early in the morning.

We check out the trail head sign and the little park that is located there.

We are right next to an active rail line.

We are ready to hit the trail by first light, hoping to miss some of the heat.

This section of trail had some scenic parts. It also had a 20 mile slight uphill as we climbed into the Black Hills. Needless to say we flew downhill on the way back.

Most of the flowers were gone, but a few added color to the trail side.

So did the smooth Green Snake.

Todays mileage was 44 as we ended our day at mile one. or 109 depending which side of the marker you looked at.

Only positive comments to make on this trail. We were glad that we did shuttles, but we did see several groups that were backpacking the trail.

We didn’t have an exact plan for heading back to San Diego, other that we planned to attend a van show at Big Bear Ca. We easily could have spent some time at one of the National Parks in Utah, however when we pulled of at a spot in Colorado just to take a break, we ended up staying there for 4 days. We unknowingly discovered McInnis Canyon, a National Conservation Area . It is one of Colorado’s most diverse desert recreational area. A map showed a lot of trails which would be fun to try biking on them. So for the next four days we explored the area and were not disappointed. Some of the trails overlooked the Colorado River. I am sure we will stop here again if we find ourselves in the area. Below are some photos of the trails.

The trails were labeled for difficulties.

It is always fun to see the different rock formations.

While here we read about the Colorado National Monument. There was camping there as well as a biking route. We decided to check it out and were impressed with the landscape. It was a cold night as the elevation is quite high.