By cas123 on July 07, 2010
Hello from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada! My husband and I rode the trail on June 30 - July 4, 2010. The trail surpassed our expectations. On day one, we parked our car at Hill City and biked to Deadwood in one afternoon, and continued down the whole trail from there making our next home base out of Custer. The trail between Hill City and Deadwood is a beautiful ride with tunnels, quiet, peaceful country sights and an amazing town at the end of the trail. The temperature was 91F when we left Hill City so we were very grateful for the access to water along the routes. Along the trail, we had the opportunity to watch deer feeding, and observe the many wonders including Crazy Horse Memorial. The trail was in good to excellent condition and both of us will share this wonderful experience with our local bike shop so others can enjoy the joys and pleasures of biking without traffic. Thank you to rails-to-trail for providing a detailed map.
By fishr78 on July 06, 2010
this was my first big bike ride, and it was great. we rode north to south, meaning that Day 2 was a joyride of nearly 40 miles of gradual downhill to the finish in Edgemont.
i grew up in the black hills area and thought i'd prefer the deadwood-hill city section of trail, but the southern half actually turned out to be really spectacular--saw lots of deer between custer and pringle, and the sheep canyon section was beautiful. (we had rain on Day 2, though, and the area was still really green from an abnormally wet spring, so our experience might be somewhat atypical. i can imagine the pringle to edgemont section could be brutal in hot, dry late summer weather.)
trail was in great condition throughout (aside from slightly less-packed gravel near White Elephant TH), shelters were nice, and interpretive signs were interesting. lots of people were using the trails near lead/deadwood, dumont, rochford, hill city, and custer; we saw hardly anybody on the southern end of the trail.
we camped on public lands just off-trail between hill city and custer. we talked to another rider who recommended Crooked Creek Campground (which is accessible from the trail).
this trail convinced me that RT touring should be an addition to my list of fun outdoor adventures. :)
By celstad on May 11, 2010
I was trying to see if there was a transfer/shuttle service from the South end back to the North?? I want to ride the trail but not both ways. Ha.
Thanks,
Clar