The Hike at Black Hills, South Dakota
8/18 at 8 am
“It’s a beautiful, sunny morning. The sun is beaming through the tall Spruce. We can see the mountains all around us. So peaceful and as I sit to write this, tears pop into my eyes. I can’t believe I am here! I wish all my kids were here. This is going to be a great bonding experience. “
We arrived at Horsethief Campground in the Black Hills, South Dakota after 9 pm. Closing hours had long passed and the night was sooo dark, you could not see a thing. There are no street lights in the forest. The Black Hills name comes from the Lakota Sioux word, Paha Sapa, meaning hills that are black. So imagine waking in the morning and stepping outside with a cup of coffee in hand to see for the first time what you worked so hard for and dreamed of for years. It’s like opening the door to a surprise party, but with no noise, only the sounds of nature.
There are other RV’s and campers all around, but still silence. I can’t explain it, but I appreciate it because getting away from all the commotion of daily life is the point of these two weeks.
So what do you do when you come to the mountains?
Why hike, of course! Hell, that’s why we are here so we hit the ground running on what the weathermen said would be a very balmy 90-degree day. It’s hard to believe when it’s 60° at 9 am, so I figure it won’t feel that hot on the mountain. We pack our water bottles, lunch, and a protein bar in our backpacks and take off.
We head to Custer State Park to attempt Black Elk Peak trail #9 at Sylvan Lake.
According to AllTrails, this is a moderate hike of just about 7 miles. We know to walk slower because of the elevation change, and have all day so we got this!!!
Lesson #1 – All Trails is full of crap.
Maybe that’s harsh … I should say they must be professional hikers, so to them it’s moderate, but to the regular folks who walk neighborhoods or a track, it was freaking hard. I can laugh about it now, but I wasn’t laughing at the time. Oh you know, the first mile is filled with excitement, especially when you see your girl in her element and this view about 3/4 of a mile in …
But then you kinda start to see the writing on the wall. A lot of the trees have been attacked by bugs and this is not what I envision to be a forest. It’s green at the bottom, but as you go up, the trees become sparse and the sun is beating on you. Apparently normal in these parts, but that is not the case in NY. Freddy, me, and Bella are all ok, but every five minutes, Joe wants to know when lunch is. You see, a big part of our routine on any vacation, as I mentioned when we went to Italy, is food as his motivation. The prize at the end of whatever we are asking him to do that is out of his comfort zone, is a meal. “You can have lunch when we hike to the top,” we tell him, also every five minutes.
(Don’t judge unless you have walked a mile in our shoes … and in this case, it’s several, uphill, so you do what you have to do.)
Another thing I learned is you have never walked quite as far as you think …
kinda like how a watched pot never boils. We hiked for 1.5 hours and somehow only went 2 miles? Every time I checked the mileage on the phone, only 1/10 of a mile had been ticked off. We’d make frequent stops, take sips of water, and realized pretty early on that we may not have enough fluids or snacks. It really is 90° and humid. Not only that, but the path became rockier and rockier for greater lengths.
Our routine became; stop in the shady parts, take a sip of water, eat a bite of a protein bar, and move on. At times, those shady parts were too few and far between. According to the mileage on the phone and what All-trails told us, we should have been getting close. We kept saying that to Joe because that’s what we believed, but it was a little further than that. He wants lunch, and I sympathized, but if you eat and drink everything on the way up, we will have to call 911 on the way back.
This thought of literally calling 911 ran through my mind constantly but I didn’t express it because I was trying to be strong. I wasn’t doing a good job of it, but thankfully, I can always count on Freddy to pick up the slack. Remember I mentioned getting out of my comfort zone in the first post about this vacation? This is another one of those times.
This is a definite learning process for all.
But also, there is no quitting here, because, at some point, you figure if you walked this far, you ARE NOT stopping as you WILL regret it. It was 4 miles to the top and took us 2 hours and 45 minutes. That may not seem like much more than the supposed 3.5, but it felt like 10.
Bella made it way before we did, I followed her up about 20 minutes later, while Freddy was resting with Joe a little further back. I called when I got there and told him there was no way he would make it the last quarter of a mile as it was so steep with many stairs – we dragged him far enough. We push him but we’re not monsters.
Besides, it was us who would regret not making it, Joe doesn’t let these things bother him as he is not that hard on himself. A trait we can all learn from once in a while.
When you arrive at the top, the stress involved with getting there is forgotten. You pat yourself on the back for a job well done, take a deep breath, and gaze with amazement at the fruits of your labor.
We took this picture from the bench near the beginning ….
And unbeknownst to us, was taking a picture of the very place we would be walking to four miles later to get here. ↘ Now does that picture above look moderate to you?
After a few minutes, I ran back down so Freddy could reap his reward. Joe had eaten, finished his water, and he and I started back down while they continued to enjoy the view.
The way back down wasn’t that much different than the way up but it sure did seem a lot longer.
Obviously, it wasn’t, but it felt excruciatingly long, and running out of water with 2 miles to go didn’t help. The stress was back and I started to panic. Now I am getting nervous for myself, too. The heat is not my friend and in my head, calling 911 became more realistic. When I get upset, Joe becomes the big brave one telling me he is fine and insisting I not worry. Nonetheless, I couldn’t stop and was mad at myself for being unprepared. All of this interjected with prayers of God help us, and my brain was working overtime. I told Bella to run ahead, set up chairs by the lake, and have water waiting for us when we got back – I needed something to look forward to.
Joe’s motivation had also changed and now there was a new annoying question.
He knows there is no food. He ate his own, plus half of mine and Freddys, so the new question asked every 5 minutes is, “are we almost at the RV?” I may have lied a few times claiming we were almost back knowing full well, we weren’t. I ended up running the last mile, desperate to get water for Joe. So desperate, I filled a bottle with water from a sink in a public bathroom. I ran back, and when I found them near the bottom, he was perfectly fine with a big smile. He guzzled that water but was none worse for wear. It took us 3 1/4 hours to get back down but we hiked 8 miles!! I limped my way in socks back to the RV, proud and counting my blessings.
In hindsight, we probably should have picked a shorter hike considering it was the first one, but you know what?? It set us up for success for the rest of them. Well, there is another one when we veered way off the trail in the Rocky Mountains but that story will come later. Things always seem so much worse when you are going through them, so was it really that bad? Yes, but the growth and experience gained outweighed the angst.
We celebrated that night. Feeling great for all of our accomplishments and most of all, Joe’s. His reward – dinner wherever he wanted to go and some margaritas for all.
The Other Sights we saw in South Dakota …
With no desire to hike the next day, we visited Bear Country, a drive-thru wildlife sanctuary.
We drove by Mount Rushmore.
I wanted to see Sitting Bull, but it was too far away so we checked out Mount Rushmore or the true name to the Lakota Sioux, Tunkasila Sakpe Paha, or Six Grandfathers Mountain. There is a lot of dirty politics behind the sculpture, but this is a travel blog so let’s keep it there.
And our last night in South Dakota ended with some Uno and a private dinner for 4 by a lake.
Early the next morning, we head to Glacier National Park, Montana …. to be continued soon.
Much Love and Happy Sunday!
Sandy
#enlighten #inspire #eempower #educate
