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Out in Greene County, Iowa
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 The 109-mile Mickelson Trail in South Dakota is a scenicbicycling adventure of tough climbs & glorio
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
June 23, 2009
HILL CITY, SOUTH DAKOTAWe were just about halfway through an 18-mile downhill bicycle ride through one of the most beautiful valleys I’ve ever seen. Mountaintops were all around us. A crystal-clear creek was gushing beside us. We had not seen an actual road or highway for some time. And then suddenly we encountered a team of college geology students, clipboards in hand, hiking the valley and creek, making notes on their observations to be turned into detailed maps.
After we’d chatted briefly with the students, and we were about ready to resume our idyllic bike ride, our friend Joe Connolly, of Council Bluffs, turned to his wife Cindy, my wife Carla Offenburger and me, and said, “You know, the only way you can see what we’re seeing right now is either to be doing what those students are doing, or what we’re doing. There’s no way you can drive to this spot.”
We were in several spots like that during our two days of riding last week on the George S. Mickelson Trail, which runs 109 miles generally north-south through the spectacular Black Hills here in western South Dakota.
The four of us were on another of our bicycling adventures on the rec trails of the Midwest. Over the past eight years, we’ve ridden the Root River State Trail in Minnesota; the Wabash Trace Nature Trail in southwest Iowa; the Raccoon River Valley Trail in west central Iowa; the Steamboat Trace Nature Trail in southeast Nebraska; the trail systems in Lincoln, Nebraska, and around Council Bluffs, and the KATY Trail across central Missouri. That KATY Trail experience last August turned out to be especially challenging, because we were riding in heat of over 100 degrees two of our days there.
This year, we resolved to find a trail in a place where temperatures would likely be more moderate, and we found that in the Black Hills. The temperature never went above the mid 70s, the humidity was low and we got a brief shower or two. We were enjoying that while noticing in the weather news that big heat was moving to our home areas in western Iowa.
The 12-year-old Mickelson Trail has a good, crushed rock surface that, most places, is eight to 12 feet wide, sometimes wider. It is officially a long, linear “state park,” and it is owned and maintained – very nicely – by the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish & Parks. It is named after the South Dakota governor who was killed in a plane crash in the Dubuque area of Iowa in 1993.
The Mickelson Trail is on a former railroad right-of-way, so the climbs and downhills of moderate grade, but, oh! Are they ever long! The 15-mile climb out of the northern trailhead of Deadwood is tough enough to challenge the most experienced cyclist. Ditto for a nine or 10-mile climb going south from Hill City. But there is a glorious payoff in both cases. To the north, there is the 18-mile downhill from Dumont to Mystic in that gorgeous valley I described at the start of this story. And after you climb up from Hill City, you eventually start a 28-mile downhill run to the south end of the trail in Edgemont. Even the most casual and occasional bike riders can enjoy those glides.
You go through four tunnels in the mountains. We shared the trail with other cyclists, horse riders, walkers, cattle, deer, groundhogs and one big ol'' rattlesnake. Believe me, I didn’t even give a thought to getting the camera out of my bike bag to try to get a photo of the snake.
We found great food at fun stops along the way, including the 98-year-old Moonshine Gulch Saloon in Rochford, the very fashionable old hotel dining room in the Alpine Inn in Hill City, a terrific lunch at Baker’s Bakery in Custer, and the Hitchin’ Rail Bar & Restaurant in Pringle. We had a very comfortable cabin at Pine Rest Cabins, a resort dating to 1911 just outside Hill City, and we hired the Black Hills Shuttle van, available through Rabbit Bicycles in Hill City, to transport us when we wanted to simplify logistics.
Of course, by being in the Black Hills, we also had access to the major tourist attractions in the area – Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, Crazy Horse Memorial and of course Wall Drug – and we drove to those spots when we weren’t bicycling.
It was a tremendous get-away, as most of our trail rides have been. And you can experience more of it by reading the captions to the photos posted just below here.
You can write the columnist at chuck@Offenburger.com.
Here is one of the distinctive trail signs on the Mickelson Trail, honoring the railroad history of the 109-mile recreational trail.
Enroute to the Mickelson Trail in the Black Hills of South Dakota, a stop is almost required at the famous Wall Drug in the small town of Wall, S.D. Coffee is still five cents per cup there, and ice water is free.
Here are the Connollys and Offenburgers at the Mickelson Trail''s northern trailhead in Deadwood, with mile marker No. 109. The trail ride is especially rigorous if you start in Deadwood and ride south, as the first 15 miles you are riding mountain grades -- up!
Here, Joe Connolly rides out of one of the four tunnels on the Mickelson Trail. Note the steel netting used to hold rock in place on the mountain walls above the tunnel and trail.
Carla Offenburger is shown here riding the Mickelson Trail on a long downhill stretch through a beautiful valley between the trailheads in Dumont and Rochford. Where the trail crosses private property, as is the case here with the pasture adjacent to it, attractive split-rail fencing like this is used to make the right-of-way more appealing to both trail users and landowners. The trail is owned by the State of South Dakota, and is managed and maintained by that state''s Department of Game, Fish & Parks.
Here are the Connollys and Offenburgers outside another of the Mickelson Trail tunnels.
One of the favorite stops for those on the Mickelson Trail is the Moonshine Gulch Saloon, which has operated for 98 years in the tiny town of Rochford. The saloon has beer and other cold drinks, good food and lots of local color.
Here is the ''Rochford Mall,'' a snack and art shop in tiny Rochford (pop. 25) on the Mickelson Trail.
As you can see from the signs on the side of the little store, the Rochford Mall has picked up a fun nickname, The Small of America.
Carla Offenburger is shown here above a gorgeous waterfall alongside the Mickelson Trail, north of the trailhead in Mystic.
Carla Offenburger and Cindy Connolly are shown here alongside the rapids and waterfall near Mystic on the Mickelson Trail.
Most of the trailheads along the Mickelson Trail have nice shelterhouses built, complete with a picnic table, generally a pit toilet (and they are nicely cared-for) and usually a cistern with fresh water available by hand pump.
Between Hill City and Custer on the Mickelson Trail, there is this curious dedication plaque on one of the trail bridges.
Here Joe Connolly imitates the pose of the legendary Native American chief Crazy Horse, that is being sculpted into the mountain in the background. The Crazy Horse Memorial is a couple of miles north of Custer. The chief''s face is essentially complete on the mountain, and work is now underway on his extended arm, horse and other features.
Here the Connollys and Offenburgers are shown in a valley on the Mickelson Trail, just north of Custer. What may be most memorable to the two couples about this photo is that Carla stumbled while running to get in place, after triggering the camera''s time-delayed shutter, and turned her ankle.
Carla Offenburger, with ice on her swelling ankle, and Joe Connolly are shown here taking a break in the very nice headquarters and visitors'' center of the Custer Chamber of Commerce. Carla was able to finish the day''s ride, despite the sore ankle.
Cindy and Joe Connolly and Carla Offenburger here pose with one of many buffalo statues that have been painted by local artists and are display throughout downtown Custer.
Joe and Cindy Connolly are shown here above Sheep Canyon, a beautiful spot about eight miles from the Mickelson Trail''s southern trailhead in Edgemont.
While the northern two-thirds of the Mickelson Trail is in mountainous terrain, the southern third begins to change into a plateau and eventually a prairie. This photo is taken at the Minnekahta Trailhead, 16 miles from the southern end of the trail.
The best part about doing rigorous bicycle rides, like the 50 and 60 mile days the Connollys and Offenburgers put in on the Mickelson Trail, is feeling like you can splurge on meals and desserts. Here Cindy Connolly shows off the ''chocolate waffle'' she had after a lunch in Hill City.
Here are the Connollys while on the half-mile-long ''Presidential Walk'' that goes from the visitors'' center at Mount Rushmore to the base of the famous mountain.
Joe and Cindy Connolly and Carla Offenburger, below the famous faces on Mount Rushmore.
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