This is Sylvan Lake, a movie setting fans will recognize from National Treasure II a few years ago. Since the 1920s, when Hollywood discovered Russ Madison’s ranch in the heart of the Black Hills, the region has been a favorite on-location site for movie shoots. Major films shot here include … Read More
World’s biggest mountain sculptures, world’s biggest motorcycle rally, western hemisphere’s biggest gold mine, two of the planet’s biggest caves, and probably the number one biggest cave once we determine where Jewel and Wind caves intersect. If you’ve missed it, the operative word here is “biggest,” a Black Hills obsession, whether … Read More
When Wild Bill Hickok got shot in Deadwood in 1876, it wasn’t a classic Old West showdown. It was plain, unadorned, John Wilkes Booth-style, bullet-to-the-back-of-the-head assassination. It’s a safe bet that no community on earth has embraced and celebrated assassination quite like Deadwood. You can’t get out of the place … Read More
Shhh! It’s kind of a secret. Black Hills streams are perfect trout habitats, as fishermen know, but these fish aren’t native to the area. When immigrants swarmed to the Black Hills in the late 1800s, they were surprised to find no trout. All trout caught here today are descended from … Read More
If you grew up in Iowa or Minnesota in the 1960s, and your next door neighbors took a Black Hills vacation, you maybe didn’t recognize their car when it returned. The car would be plastered with bright bumper stickers from every cave, gravity house, and curio shop the neighbors visited. … Read More
You reach Thunderhead Falls by pulling off highway 44 west of Rapid City, feeling lost on a gravel road that’s not well marked, buying a ticket, and trudging unguided into an old horizontal mine drift. A cold stream rushes along the underground path for a couple hundred yards, fed by … Read More
Bridal Veil Falls can embarrass you. It’s visible from the Spearfish Canyon highway (there’s even a new observation deck) and when it cascades full in spring it’s spectacular. It roars and sprays mist, cascading a hundred feet. So a few weeks later you decide to take out-of-state friends up there, … Read More
The restrooms at Deadwood’s iconic Saloon #10 were – to put it kindly – rustic. Maybe not outdoors like a proper outhouse, but they had that kind of ambiance. We’d post a YouTube video but you wouldn’t want to watch it, and no one thought to make that kind of … Read More
You’ve maybe heard that a rite of growing up in Spearfish is riding inner tubes down swift, icy Spearfish Creek. It’s true, but don’t be surprised by puzzled looks if you ask locals how to participate. These looks may stem from the fact that: –You’re older than 12. –It’s February. … Read More
Elk, mountain lions, eagles, bobcats, and deer make Spearfish Canyon home. But a few years ago porcupines stole the spotlight, made national news in the canyon for developing a taste for brake fluid. Yes, they bit into brake lines and drank the stuff, leaving drivers up a steep canyon with … Read More