Outdoors

Elevated tees.  High altitude drives.  Banana Belt.These are terms regularly bandied about by Black Hills golfers.  Golf is a passion for lots of local people, the reason some of them live here — liberated from crowded, flat-land courses they knew elsewhere.  Elevated tees mean teeing off a high point onto … Read More

How’s your internal compass? If getting lost excites you – head over to our wonderful fall attraction, the Spearfish Corn Maze. For spooky Halloween lovers, be sure to visit at night! The maze offers haunted walks, though I hate to admit that I’m too chicken to attend those. When I … Read More

After a long day in the car, all I need is a walk. The City Park in Spearfish has a wonderful bike path that winds past the campground and part of the way up into the canyon. If you like biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, or just hoofing it: this exquisite path … Read More

People waste hundreds on photo-art from retail stores. They walk in, stall in the art section, and pick out a photo with some blues and greens for tranquility, then take it home, nail it to the wall, and continue living in ignorance. Why stare at a photo when you could … Read More

So this one’s a little trickier and not for the faint hearted! Take a lunch, take some time, and take your best hiking shoes. It’s not the hardest hike around the Black Hills but you’ll get your cardio in… Just saying… Also, take a few minutes at the top to … Read More

As a resident of Spearfish, this is my go-to for summer weekends. I pack up my lounge chair, a good book, fishing poles, and head out to the beach. Or if you’re lucky, find a friend with a boat and troll for walleye. One side of the Reservoir is a … Read More

Spearfish people love their Lookout Mountain and have found practical uses for it, beginning with weather monitor. Snow or fog isn’t considered thick until “you can’t see Lookout today.” How is summer rainfall measuring up? Whether Lookout is green or brown by mid-July offers a hint. Hiking or bicycling is … 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

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

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