“Adventures” Page

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking

After nearly four years of writing this blog, I’ve accumulated a number of “hiking review” type articles. I thought it would be nice to consolidate those, so here’s the “Adventures” page! Any suggestions as to content would be very appreciated, as right now it is in the early stages of development. I intend to flesh out the page itself with additional overview-type info on the hikes, and may perhaps add information to the articles, though for now I have no plans to do so.If there are any hikes I haven’t covered that you’re interested in, comment on the page and let me know! I always love suggestions for new hikes, and there are some I’ve done that for one reason and another never got published as blog articles.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy!

Hiking | Crow Peak Trail

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking

We live right on the edge of the Black Hills National Forest, with our own property to hike on, as well as many other gorgeous hikes within a (relatively) short drive from our house. It is pretty easy to get stuck around here and the southern Hills for our excursions, and not venture too far from north. So I was glad to finally make it up towards Spearfish to hike the Crow Peak Trail, a roughly 6 mile out-and-back trail to the top of a beautiful little mountain, with gorgeous views of the surrounding area, including Bear Butte.
The trail is well maintained and pretty much impossible to lose sight of. It is a steady uphill climb, steeper towards the top, with a handful of switchbacks and sprawling views from open areas on the way up. In the lower elevations of the trail, there are some good unobstructed views of Crow Peak, which I always enjoy. It is fun to be able to glimpse the destination. In a few places, the trail traverses steep, rock-covered slopes, and standing dead are evidence of not-so-long-ago fire activity. As a proper destination hike should, it boasts incredible views from the summit.We brought a picnic and our hammocks, and enjoyed an uncharacteristically leisurely lunch on the edge of a cliff, with Bear Butte visible in the distance. It was a bit chilly, but so beautiful, and hard to make ourselves head back down to “the real world.” Amazing how excursions into God’s glorious Creation help to put life into perspective, as worries and cares fade into the distance. It is a good thing I have a sense of personal responsibility, otherwise I would just quit everything I’m doing and live in the woods with my hammock.

Hiking | Boulder Hill

Posted on December 13, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking

One of the fantastic things about living in an area like the Black Hills is just how accessible the hiking is. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know the Black Hills more this year, with my free-er schedule and ability to really set some time aside to simply enjoy the outdoors. I feel very blessed to have been able to do that this year!Boulder Hill is a short spur off the Flume Trail #50, and makes a great short afternoon hike, with an easily accessible trailhead to the spur, or, if you feel like cheating, an even shorter route up a logging road. It is rated as hard, due to some steep scrambling. If you have a fear of heights, this may not be the trail for you. Some of the steep places are pretty exposed, and made me a little giddy! Be advised that the parking lot for Boulder Hill trailhead is on the other side of the road from the actual trailhead. And what looks like the trailhead sign board is not at the trailhead. Look for this sign:
That’s the trail.

We lost the trail part way up and ended up walking up an old logging road, which for us was actually the long way around. But that whole area is beautiful, so what did it matter?Remnants of an old fire tower prove what a great lookout this peak actually is. The views from the top are spectacular. The Black Hills are known as an island in the prairie, and Boulder Hill is close to the foothills of the Black Hills, providing excellent views down into the surrounding prairies as far off as the Badlands. There is a beautiful view of Harney Peak, and I could see Lakota Peak as well, a landmark in my neck of the woods, just a few miles from my house.It was fun to look down from the peak and see, way in the distance, Axel’s car in the trailhead parking lot. I’m not a “vista person,” when it comes to hiking. I love good views, but what motivates me is the enchantment and challenge of a beautiful, long hike, not so much getting somewhere specific but getting away from anywhere specific. That said, what is thrilling about a “vista hike” is getting to look down on everywhere I just hiked. It really puts things in perspective – huge perspective. When hiking in the lowlands, there is absolutely no sense of distance, as far as how far is how far you hiked. What does a mile or six miles or thirteen miles look like, winding through the Hills? But looking down from a peak and seeing the trailhead in the distance is a pretty neat feeling. And, since this is a spur off the Flume Trail, which we had hiked just a few weeks earlier, we sat there trying to orient ourselves to where we’d hiked and where the trail must have been. We could make a pretty educated guess, and the vastness was thrilling.

What a glorious place we live in.

Hiking | Little Elk Creek Trail

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking, Photography

Oh, back when the weather was warmer…However, warmer doesn’t mean warm. On this particular hike, Axel, Katie, and I all were a bit chilly for the first while, having not considered the morning shade in the canyon. We were treated to some of the first glimpses of winter, with persistent ice over parts of Little Elk Creek, beautiful frozen, frosted, filigreed leaves, and the nipping of the crisp, morning air at our cheeks and noses. Autumn was still hanging on by a thread, and not all the trees had dropped their leaves, but the crispness and the frost let us know that winter was on its way.
Little Elk Creek Trail is a well-maintained trail, approximately 5 miles out-and-back, used by hikers, bikers, and trail runners. It is mostly level, with very little elevation gain, and though it is rated as moderate according to All Trails, I would definitely rate it as easy. Perhaps the length is where the moderate rating comes in. I don’t know.The trail follows along or above Little Elk Creek, though some beautiful rock formations and canyon areas, boasting many beautiful views. Across the creek from the trail, shaded north slopes were green with moss, steep and rocky, and very different from the brown, sunlit slopes the trail followed. We met a few other hikers, but it was a quiet trail. It is a ways off the beaten path, and likely not a lively tourist destination, since most tourists would probably hike around Sylvan Lake and Custer State Park, the crown jewels of the Black Hills. But this lovely hike is worth the time to get there.
And as always in the Black Hills, if you can tear your gaze from the soaring beauty of the trees, spires, canyons, and blue, blue sky, there are other things to marvel at as well. Things like friendship, for one. What a gift God gave when He created people, plural. He meant for us to live in community and fellowship with one another, and hiking with my brothers and sisters in Christ is one of my greatest joys at this time of my life. And then there are the tiny, almost-trodden on things, like abandoned bird nests and rushes growing green along the creek. It is so easy to focus so intently on the big picture that a million priceless glimpses of joy are lost.

Hiking | St. Elmo’s Peak

Posted on November 4, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking

I just want to say for starters that I really hate this hike. This may be the only hike in the Hills that I’ve actually hated. I’ve hiked St. Elmo’s Peak twice and hated it both times. And yet I’d do it again. It is probably one of the shortest hikes you can find in the Black Hills, and also one of the most vertical. And both times I’ve hiked it, I haven’t felt the best to start with, making the hike even less fun. In the space of a little under a mile, the trail gains about 1100 feet of elevation. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot to you, but it really is. Basically, it hurts on the way up and on the way down. There’s no winning on this hike, until you get to the top…and meet the frigid gale-force winds that are lying in wait for unfortunate hikers. Oh, right. There’s no winning on this hike.

Whoever built this trail was clearly looking for the shortest route to the top. Hardly a single switchback on this hike. Probably because if you started putting switchbacks in, where in the world would you stop? So basically you start at the base of this very cone-shaped mountain (easily identifiable from the highway) and trek your way straight up to the top. Miserable.

The trailhead is a little south of the intersection of Highway 87 and 16, between Hill City and Custer, on the southeast side of the road. The trail is a little hard to follow at times, since it crosses one or two logging roads, jogs a bit, and then starts upwards again. So beware of that. Other than that, it is a straightforward hike, and can easily be completed in a couple of hours, depending on how fast you feel like hiking vertically.
That said, it is gorgeous. And the views from the top are spectacular, particularly this unique view of Harney Peak. Sometimes misery is absolutely worth it.

Hiking | Lover’s Leap

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Laura Lindblom under hiking, Photography

It has been a few years since I hiked Lover’s Leap, and on a free morning last week we managed to get out there for a beautiful quick hike in our beautiful autumn weather. I love short hikes with some good hill climbing, and Lover’s Leap fits the bill. It is an easy to moderate 4.4 mile loop, best hiked clockwise, with a steady uphill climb for the first mile and a half, and then a gentle downhill or level trail for the rest of the hike. The trail name refers to legend of two Native American lovers who were fleeing from the United States Cavalry and jumped to their deaths from what we now know as Lover’s Leap. The trailhead is located near the Game Lodge in Custer State Park. After about a half mile, maybe less, the trail splits. We took the left hand trail and hiked it clockwise. The trail features diversity of landscape, with beautifully maintained ponderosa pine forest, sweeping views of the Hills glimpsed between the trees, colorful hardwoods along the creek in the lower elevations of the hike, and of course the glorious views from the top of Lover’s Leap. A good part of this area was also burned during the Legion Lake Fire, adding to the diversity of the sights. Stark black tree trunks give evidence to the ferocity of the fire in those areas. Although it may look ugly now, as the trees either naturally fall or are felled over the next years, and the grass and plant life returns, those areas will be transformed and beautiful. A sign at the base of the short scramble to the top of Lover’s Leap reads:

Custer State Park is a place where one can still be an unworried and unregimented individual and wear any old clothes and sit on a log and get his sanity back again.Notice the scratch markings in the bottom left corner of the sign before the word “sanity.” That used to read “his.” What occurs to me as I read this sign with the word “his” scratched out is that whoever it was that defaced this sign clearly hadn’t taken advantage of sitting on a log and getting his–sorry, her (probably, right?) sanity back.
This is the kind of hike I hate to finish. The trail was so peaceful and beautiful, the sunlight filtering through the trees was magical, and the sense of autumn was glorious. Definitely a day for stomping through the woods and getting one’s sanity back again. I guess that’s one of the things I love about hiking. Cares of the world tumble away and cease to matter, and worries cease to plague me, the craziness of our current culture and politics and worldview battles disappear for a time, and a sense of perspective returns in the vastness and beauty of God’s creation, in the rhythm of footfall and breath.