Roughlock Falls & Spearfish Canyon

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

No alarm was set, but we were still up shortly after dawn. Today's plan was to drive to the northern part of the Black Hills...over an hour away from where we were staying. We had barely pulled out of the driveway and we saw a deer.

Highway 385 took us past the Crazy Horse Memorial again but going in this direction gave us a much better view of the carving. Some day this is going to be amazing...but that day is far off into the future.

Model of what finished sculpture will look like. (crazyhorsememorial.org)

As we drove north, the Gypsy Guide App would frequently give us little tidbits of information. The history of the area we learned was interesting, but the real value of the app was giving us directions to places that would have gotten missed or been hard to find otherwise. Gypsy Joe (as we referred to the male voice on the app) took us right to the parking lot for the trail head of Roughlock Falls...our first stop of the day. Well...almost the first stop. Bob pulled over a time or two to when he saw interesting rocks alongside the road. Cheap souvenirs.

It would have been nice to arrive here early in the morning as we did for the hike at Sylvan Lake, but with the hour+ drive it just didn't happen. We were sharing the path with a few more people than I would have preferred, but still no more than we encounter on walks around our own neighborhood at home.

It was cool enough that jeans felt good when we began the hike but as the sun rose up above the hills, it got much warmer. The yellow fall foliage sprinkled with bits of orange and red made for a beautiful walk down the path. The trail followed along the Little Spearfish Creek with tall bluffs on either side. 

The one-mile trail led us to the lower falls. We waited until others had left before we went to the end of the boardwalk overlooking the falls. I could have stayed here much longer, but we wanted to give others the chance to get their photos as well.

The cascading lower falls with a glimpse of the upper falls in the background.

The trail continued uphill to the upper falls which can also be accessed by a much shorter path coming from a different parking lot. It was obvious that most people take the quicker route and it was fairly congested. We donned our masks here and only stayed long enough to get some photos. 

Upper Roughlock Falls. 
(Thanks, Erin, for the tip on how to take long exposure photos with an iPhone!!)

It had taken us about an hour to get to the falls with all of our photo stops, but walking back to our car went much quicker. Gypsy Joe had mentioned that a couple of miles down the gravel road was a filming location for the movie "Dances With Wolves." (Bob has watched this movie more times than I can count and frequently listens to the soundtrack while driving. Between this and his love for the Badlands, you can get an idea of his passions and interests.)

We almost drove past the spot when I caught a glimpse of a sign. And really that is all that is there…a sign. I took my shoes off and put my feet in the small creek while Bob managed to get across the water to explore. (My feet didn’t stay in the water long before they were hurting from the cold. A little longer and they would have been numb!) Not for sure, but he thinks this was the location for the winter scene near the end of the movie.

Dances With Wolves film site.

Trying to get across the creek to explore the film site.

Leaving the movie site, we backtracked down the gravel road towards Spearfish Canyon Road. We had hoped to walk the trail to Spearfish Falls as well, but somehow missed where we should’ve turned. The trail head was very near the Roughlock Falls trail, but I thought there was a separate parking lot. Who knows. Now we have something to look forward to on a future trip.

The drive thru Spearfish Canyon was spectacular. It was lunchtime and Bob suggested just finding a pull-off and eating from the car. We couldn't find any place that was shady and it was too warm to sit in the sun (in my opinion.) Eventually we came to a small forest service picnic area with a few tables. Only one table was available (which was in the sun AND next to the pit toilet) so we pulled out our lawn chairs and sat in the shade by the car. Spearfish Creek was running through the picnic area and we enjoyed the sound of the rushing water while we ate our lunch.

Spearfish Canyon Road

View from our picnic spot.

Bridal Veil Falls

We just happened to see this waterfall and pulled over. No sign or mention of it from our Gypsy Guide. It was actually more impressive than the more well-known Bridal Veil Falls.

Reaching the end of the canyon drive, we turned back south again and drove through downtown Deadwood. Following the signs, we drove up the steep hill to the Mt. Moriah cemetery where Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane were buried. Having visited here before we didn't go into the cemetery, but just drove by. Again...something to add to our future itineraries. 

Continuing on, we came to the town of Lead (pronounced leed). The Gypsy Guide app alerted us to the Sanford Underground Research Lab which occupies the former Homestake Gold Mine in Lead. The lab makes use of the hundreds of miles of underground space to do physics research in dark matter and neutrino science. I don't even begin to understand what that means...you will just have to check it out yourself! 

The parking area at the visitor center overlooked the giant mine pit. Only a couple other cars were in the lot so we put on our masks and went inside. I think there were just 3 others inside so we quickly walked around looking at the exhibits.

Open cut portion of the mine.

T. Denny Sanford made a $70 million donation to help fund this research lab. Before retirement, Bob worked as a paramedic for Sanford Health, a recipient of another $400 million of Denny's money.

View of the open mine through the window of the visitor center.

Initially we had considered driving on to Devil's Tower, across the state line in Wyoming. Bob has climbed Devil's Tower a few times and it is such an impressive site, but given the long drive we had ahead of us we decided to head back to the apartment. On the way we stopped at Pactola Lake. I wanted to get a photo of the interesting island and Bob wanted look for a few more rocks. (As if we the car load we already have wasn't enough.) 

On the hunt for more rocks.

After eating a hodge-podge of leftovers for dinner, Jim (the AirBnB owner) offered to take us out "elk bugling." (Jim explained that he had a horn that imitated an elk sound which you blow and then wait to see if an elk responds.) I decided that sounded like a guy-type of trip so I stayed at the apartment and let Bob and Jim have all the fun. 😄 

I was so tired I could barely stay awake until they left at 9:30 PM. Around midnight I woke up and realized that Bob still wasn't back! I think it was close to 1:00 am when he came in. Our plan was to get up at 5:45 AM the next morning to head to Mount Rushmore but I shut off the alarm and decided we would rethink those plans in the morning.

(Note: Bob had a great time on his "elk bugling" excursion! They were successful in hearing and seeing elk and also ran into a buffalo herd. While they were out they also encountered a group of conservation officers doing nighttime research on ferrets!)