Beautiful Spearfish Canyon

 Sunday, October 1, 2023

Hello October! Our last full day of the trip. It was hard to get moving...definitely a two cup of coffee kind of morning. I packed up the cooler with our picnic supplies. It is handy to know we don't have to find a place to eat when we are out exploring. Today our plan was to drive the Spearfish Canyon Road and finding a restaurant to eat at the time we wanted to eat could be difficult.

On the way, Bob decided to make a stop at Cheyenne Crossing, the restaurant/gift shop where we had dinner on Friday night. When we were there he had purchased a "peacock ore" rock for one of our grandsons who is really into rock collecting. Last night another grandson had called and was excited to show us a rock he had just gotten and asked Bob if he would take him out rock hunting sometime. That was all it took...Bob had to stop and buy another piece of peacock ore for him!

From Lead (where we are staying) we drove north on the canyon road. The weather was a 10 out of 10 and the scenery along the route was even better than the weather. The road is nestled between the tall canyon walls and twists and turns along Spearfish Creek the entire route. I couldn't help but noticing the interesting names that some of the small roads branching off of the canyon road have...Woodchuck Lane, Raspberry Gulch, Ice Box Lane, Coyote Lane, Calamity Gulch, Smugglers Lane, etc.

We pulled into a small parking lot at the Old Spearfish Creek Dam. Several people were fishing in the quieter pool before the water spilled over the dam. The water was crystal clear and we could see many good sized fish.

When we reached the town of Savoy, we parked at the Latchstring Restaurant and walked the trail to Spearfish Falls. The trail is fairly steep at the beginning but it is only about 3/4 mile round trip. The water flowing over the falls was impressive...especially for this time of year. 

Trail to Spearfish Falls

Spearfish Falls

Many, many people were out enjoying the beautiful Sunday weather and the traffic on the canyon road was heavy...I mean REALLY heavy. Most of the pull outs along the road were full which made stopping difficult. I'm sure many of the people were locals just enjoying the weekend and a chance to see the fall colors.

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Bob wanted to hike the Community Caves Trail. I knew there was no way I could handle that so I waited in the car while he hiked. He moves quickly and even though the trail is very vertical, he did the .6 mile route in about 45 minutes.

Approaching the pullout for the Community Caves trailhead.

The town of Spearfish is at the end of the canyon road and the location of the DC Booth Fish Hatchery, our next planned stop. The city park was adjacent to the hatchery grounds and the perfect place for our picnic lunch. It was chilly at our table in the shade, but with jackets very pleasant. The Spearfish Creek flowed between the park and the hatchery.

Our lunchtime view.

We had visited the hatchery in 2021 but it was late in the day and nothing was open. This time we got lucky and were there on the last day of the season. The hatchery grounds are so beautiful and even if nothing was open it would be worth a stop on a nice day just to wander through.

The gift shop sells fish food, but we had clipped a coupon from a travel booklet to get a free container of fish food. We each took turns tossing the food into the water and watching as the very large trout went crazy!

At the end of the road was the stately home built in 1905 for the Booth family (D.C. Booth was the first superintendent of the hatchery.) The home was open for tours and the employee sitting on the front porch seemed eager to show us around. She took us through every little nook and cranny of the house and told us stories of the family, especially Mrs. Booth who had considerable input on the design and construction of the home. For its time, the home was quite modern with indoor plumbing and electricity.

A beautifully restored replica of a railroad fish car is also on display at the hatchery. For over six decades railway cars were used to transport fish to lakes and rivers around the country.

At the northern end of the canyon, the town of Spearfish was our "turn around point." Rather than making a loop, Bob wanted to retrace our route back through the canyon. As we were driving we spotted some cars stopped alongside the road (always a good sign!) and stopped to watch several mountain goats. I kept my distance so as to not scare them, but I needn't have worried...one wandered over quite close to where I was standing.

Bridal Veil Falls is a little underwhelming compared to the other falls in Spearfish Canyon, but Bob wanted to stop anyway. The falls are right next to the highway but he went the "extra mile" and climbed down the embankment to get a closer look.

Bridal Veil Falls...barely more than a trickle.

Two-legged mountain goat. 😄

Our last planned stop was to see Roughlock Falls. The falls can be reached by either a two-mile round trip trail or by driving to the falls and taking a short (but steep) paved path. We skipped doing the longer route because Bob wanted to hike the 76 Trail. Knowing that the trail was nearly vertical, I again chose to stay back while he hiked. I didn't feel like I was missing out too much when the view from the car was so beautiful.

My view while Bob was hiking the 76 Trail.

Bob took this photo from the top of the 76 Trail. I was waiting in the parking lot below.

From top of 76 Trail.

By the time Bob returned, the sun was dipping behind the cliffs putting much of the canyon in shadows as we walked to Roughlock Falls. The falls were still spectacular but just not the greatest conditions for photos. Even at the end of the day, the falls were quite crowded with everyone (us included) trying to enjoy every last minute of a stellar day.

Walkway to Roughlock Falls.

Boardwalk leading to lower falls.

Upper Roughlock Falls

We debated about returning to Cheyenne Crossing for dinner, but decided we were tired and would rather just relax back at the condo. Dinner wasn't anything special, just something easy from a can. Later in the evening I went out on the balcony and instead of seeing the nearly full moon, I heard rumbles of thunder and saw flashes of lightning. Checking the weather radar we could see a storm was headed our way. Both of us LOVE storms so we wrapped up in blankets and sat on the balcony enjoying a light show better than any firework display! A great ending for a great trip!