What I Love About the Black Hills

By HinckleyHadAVision

A friend asked, “Please tell me what you love about the Black Hills?” 

The moss in Botany Canyon, the ice in Ice Cave, the pale yellow light after a thunderstorm at Ranch-A, tiger lilies, kayaking Dark Canyon, ice skating Spring Creek, the strawberries on Flag Mountain, the sunset from Warren Peak that makes a Bighorns silhouette, really ripe chokecherries, the little piece of 1868 Treaty land my family is squatting on, catching trout with your bare hands, the smell of an old cabin, coyotes howling, getting stuck in the mud with Jerry Harp, skiing Custer Peak, watching the moon rise from Railroad Buttes, lady slipper orchids, rolling a four wheeler, building an ice block castle, the colored walls of Calico Canyon, the Rock Maze as a kid in the late 1970s before it was trashed, Inyan Kara, Ryan’s Wiggle, Vern Kraemer taking off, the French Creek Narrows, skinny dipping in Cold Brook Reservoir, Moon, the view while climbing Devils Tower in autumn, a nighttime walk along Castle Creek, the old switchbacks in Vanocker Canyon, ice walking, raspberries at the Bighorn Sheep Sanctuary in the rain, What the Hell Lake in Wind Cave, the eastern most extent of aspen, the western most extent of birch, a ponderosa too big to hug, inner tubing Boxelder Creek, ice skating the Cheyenne River, sneaking in and exploring Galena Mine as a kid, the boat inside the Alabaster Mine, the wind at Jasper Cave, a motorbike over the Piedmont Fire Trail, a mountain bike ride down Tinton Trail, a unicycle ride on the Bone Collector, the knife edge meander in Elk Creek, the early spring ice in Sunday Gulch, wild plums, a full moon paddle on Deerfield Lake, Classic Crack, hunting for morels, 11th Hour Gulch, fishing on Lower Spring Creek with Grandpa Brown, Six Mile Road, Ice Climbing at Community Caves, Cold Brook Canyon, friends around a fire, the Moonshine Gulch Saloon, climbing the Conn Diagonal, getting chased into the Cheyenne River by wild horses, driving a VW bus on Castle Peak Road, an inversion that leaves only the peaks above the fog, bicycling Spearfish Canyon, cliff jumping, cutting an ice hole and polar bearing Sheridan Lake, hearing a mountain lion scream, The Sheep Mountain Table slot canyons, in fact the entire South Unit of the Badlands…and more to come…