Day Five: Jungle, meadow, lake, mountain

• August 23: Whispering Pines Campground to campsite south of Sheridan Lake
• Miles: 21.5
• Elevation gain: 4,100

It was cloudy, humid and warm when I woke before dawn at Whispering Pines. I was back on the CT at 6:05.

The trail continued its long, gentle descent through Boardinghouse Gulch, rambling through open forest and grassy meadows toward Pactola Lake (where I’d been some 45 years earlier with the scouts, though all I recalled was the name).

I spooked several whitetails along the way, sending a mother and her spotted fawn bounding in opposite directions. I fretted until mama finally leaped up the hill to my left and raced back for the reunion. I was also charmed to see a small red squirrel scurrying up a tree with an enormous mushroom in its mouth — who knew? And once more, I stopped regularly to feed on raspberries alongside the trail.

I caught my first sight of the reservoir after about four miles, glimpsing a finger of it below me through the trees. I soon crossed a paved road leading down to a boat ramp, and on the other side, in classic CT fashion, all sign of the trail promptly went AWOL. After glancing at a map, I bushwhacked in the general direction I thought I should be going until picking up a faint track.

The trail headed uphill to cross Highway 385. On the other side, the trail offered varied views of Pactola Dam before crossing Rapid Creek. The CT skirts along south of the creek before crossing a small foot bridge. Then, for the next half a mile or so, I found myself pushing through dew-soaked willows and grasses that were, as often as not, over my head. I was reminded of descriptions of wet, close marches through southeast Asian elephant grass. The going was slow and sloppy, and by the time I emerged, I was as soaked as if I’d walked through a thunderstorm.

After passing cabins at the Tamarack Trailhead, I began climbing up through Tamarack Canyon. Topping out after about a mile and a half, the trail descends Brush Creek Canyon, passing through several different ecosystems, from dense pine forest to open pastures and the lush bellies of shallow draws.

Though the route seemed fairly obvious to me, the tread was in places all but invisible. And once again, an erratic system of markers led to the need for tiresome second-guessing.

Cranky lecture interlude (feel free to skip):

Here’s the problem: You’re going along, seeing very regular markers, feeling confident. Then suddenly, you realize you haven’t seen a marker in a while, so you stop, maybe look at a map or backtrack to the last marker. In other words, if signs or markers are sporadic or irregularly spaced, it can lead to a lot of unnecessary backtracking.

Some will scoff at such a “problem,” arguing that any hiker should be skilled with map and compass and not even require trail markers. I agree that every hiker should have at some familiarity with orienteering, and I have quite a bit. But the maps and guides available for the CT are not at all granular, which renders orienteering skills less effective (i.e. the trail might take several turns that are not visible on a map, due to scale). Interpreting topological features can be helpful, but again, at such a small scale, not always useful.

Here’s the point: If a trail is going to be marked, then it should be marked … at regular, fairly predictable intervals. If the trail were totally unmarked, then of course a different set of tools would be necessary. But erratic marking is the worst of all worlds.

End of lecture.

I finally crossed Brush Creek and stepped out into dirt Brush Creek Road. The CT slithered back and forth across the road, but I decided to just walk right up the middle to the trailhead, a small dirt parking area. It had been an interesting, if trying, morning, but I had my “10 by 10” — at least 10 miles by 10 a.m. — so I was feeling good.

After a gentle climb I reached a thinly forested ridgetop with panoramic views of the open, rolling pastures surrounding the Bald Hills. Beautiful even beneath low-hanging, iron-gray clouds, I imagine it’s a truly exhilarating vista in full sunlight.

After dropping 50 yards from the ridge to the next CT stanchion, I couldn’t see another. I decided to follow a faint track heading west toward a small swale, but it soon disappeared. Spinning again, I still could make out no markers. I started following an old jeep track south-southeast toward a metal gate, but soon returned to the last obvious marker. Only then did I detect another hint of tread heading northeast into a draw. Following it, I soon spied the next marker, which had been obscured from above.

Beneath the clouds, the air was warm and humid, and I was drenched with sweat as I finally passed the Twin Sisters and followed the trail down into the next long, grassy draw, bordered by pine forest. The ground was frequently muddy and lumpy, trampled by cattle, and in several places ORVs — supposedly prohibited here — had created deep, boggy ruts. Still, the lush landscape reminded me of The Shire in Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

Down in the bottom of each draw, I couldn’t avoid sklunching down into calf-deep mud, revealing an unexpected downside my Xero sandals. Even after tightening the straps, the slick mud made my feet so slippery that they pushed far out over the sole. I would wash them off in a cattle trough or relatively clear pool, only to have to slog through through another bog … and another … and another. Thanks, outlaw ORVs and legal cattle!

As I walked up the last such draw, I saw a scrawny older guy and his expansive wife, putt-putting on their illegal ORV on the other side of the muddy creek. I noticed them long before they saw me, and when they did, they did a quick about face and fled my judging eyes. These people have literally hundreds of miles of designated trails throughout the Black Hills to ride; why do they insist on violating the law, shredding the land as they go? I don’t get it.

I finally emerged from the final boggy draw, relieved to have solid, dry, flinty ground beneath my feet. Something about this day — too many wrong turns; bogs; thoughtless, selfish people; — had left me feeling cranky, and the descent toward Sheridan Lake felt long and boring. When I finally reached Sheridan Lake Road (with its yellow gate and screamingly apparent sign prohibiting motor vehicles), I stopped to look at Steve’s databook. The suggestion was to go west on the paved road about a mile to the North Cove camping area. But it was only 1 p.m., so I decided to go on.

Not far across the road I wandered briefly in another confusing spot before marching up a short, steep hill and soon passing the Dakota Point trailhead. Descending a rocky road, I crossed footbridge and descended a short flight of stone steps to cross Sheridan Lake dam. Skirting around the southern shore of the lake, I resisted the urge to leap from several low rock outcroppings into the water, and after about a mile spilled out into the paved parking area at the Flume/Calumet Trailhead. No sign of where the CT went from here. Surprise.

Wanting to rinse the crust of sweat from my clothes and body, I walked north toward a small marina on a paved, unmarked road. I dumped my pack and waded in to the deliciously cool, clear water, scattering small fish before me. I dunked several times, then stripped down to my shorts and lay the rest to dry on the asphalt.

After looking over my sources again, I decided that part of the signage problem might be the fact that Whetham and Huhtiniemi’s guidebook was written for a northbound hike. In theory, a SOBO just had to read it from back to front, bottom to top. But in reality, just turning around can change things considerably. I suspected that there was a clear sign on the northbound CT pointing to the Flume/Calumet Trailhead, but looking southbound, nada.

I wandered into the Sheridan Lake south shore campground, but balked at paying a whopping $26 for the privilege of setting up my tent. I tanked up on water, then meandered uphill to see if I could find a trail sign, but instead came upon Bluewing Road. I headed down the road toward the trailhead, and just as the road turned east, I spied a shy little CT sign on the hillside to my right. My suspicion had been correct: Had I been a NOBO, the route would have been obvious, but from the trailhead a hundred yards away, it was invisible.

The clouds had finally burned away as I began the sustained uphill march toward Samelius Peak, a total of some 1,500 feet over three and a half miles. The trail skirted around two small peaks, then after a brief descent I found a nice, level camping spot atop a ridge, a stone’s throw from an abandoned mining “glory hole.” I pitched my tent, hung my clothes to dry, and plopped down for a snack in a pleasant breeze.

My usual practice is to put my phone into airplane mode while walking, to save battery and fend off distractions. This day, I forgot to check for a signal until around 6 p.m., when I discovered several text messages from Steve and Luke “Strider” Jordan, who were in the area after route-scouting for the GPT north of Bear Butte and had been trying to reach me to meet up. We decided to meet in about a half an hour where the trail crossed Calumet Road. I was fairly beat, but hankering for human contact, I ran 1.3 miles back down the mountain, hoping all the while that I might score a bit of trail magic.

It was great to see them. I’m sure I looked like a lunatic, wearing short-shorts and a rain jacket with a headlamp strapped onto my greasy, unkempt head. We jawed and laughed as I slugged down the Gatorade Luke handed me and munched on trail mix from Steve.

I’m more than happy to walk along for eight or 12 hours by myself and I’ve never once felt lonely on trail. But I become an enthusiastic chatterbox whenever I get to a town, campground or shelter; recharging my social batteries, I guess. On this hike, there had been no other backpackers, no shelters, no hostels, and only brief interaction with people at campgrounds or the two tiny towns I’d come through. So it was nice to see familiar faces and talk trail.

By the time we wrapped up, it was almost dark. I didn’t mind the 25-minute haul back up to the campsite as much as I thought I would. My headlamp revealed several sets of shining greenish eyes off in the forest, presumably deer. When I finally lay down to read, it was 9:30.

An hour and a half later, I was awakened by a shattering crash of thunder to find the alight with near-constant lightning. Scrambling out of the tent, I yanked my shorts and shirt off the branches where I’d hung them. Within a minute, it began to rain, and shortly after that hail began to fall.

Got bombed hard with hail and rain, large marble-sized, lightning and wind for at least 30 or 45 minutes, I wrote in my journal. Only minor leaks but much condensation inside in the morning.

Images of glowing green eyes blinking from the blackness of the abandoned glory hole awoke me sometime later. The storm had passed.

“Heed no nightly noises! for nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top,” the enigmatic Tom Bombadil tells the hobbits when they take shelter in his home in “The Lord of the Rings.”

I hadn’t been afraid in the Dreamtime and now, lying in the dark, instead of fear or nervousness, I felt a tangible surge of exhilaration at my solitude and joy at feeling so very comfortable in my little tent so deep in the woods, on a mountainside, utterly alone.

Episode 6

Day Six: Close Encounters

• August 24: Campsite south of Sheridan Lake to Grace Coolidge Creek, Custer State Park
• Miles: 17.5
• Elevation gain: 2,000 feet

I woke to cool, cloudy weather and, unusually for me, spent much of the day “dawdling” — or as normal people probably see it, doing interesting things instead of just racking up miles.

From the saddle where I camped, the CT climbed another 500 feet or so toward the summit of Samelius Peak, rising through ponderosa forests that reminded me very much of the foothills and mountains in Boulder, where I had grown up. At several points along the way I could see Rapid City off in the distance, backlit by a pink rising sun.

The trail skirts below the summit of the peak, but I soon reached the 5,833-foot high point of the Centennial Trail. Descending the other side, I ran headlong into a gathering of about 30 cow-calf pairs. Unaware of my approach, they were fooling around in the middle of the trail, calves heat-butting playfully, cows scratching themselves on tree trunks. I tried to approach slowly and calmly, but when they noticed me at last, it was all lollipop-tails and bolting down the jeep track.

Passing the Samelius Peak Trailhead, I followed the trail for less than a quarter of a mile to a foot tunnel beneath busy Highway 16. On the other side, the CT failed Signage 101 once again, but I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that had I been northbound, the route would have been clear, but yet another sudden lack of markers forced this SOBO to waste time.

The terrain was pleasantly varied for the next few miles as the trail meandered through forests and open areas past rock outcroppings and finally crossed tiny Battle Creek (into which some unhelpful person had tossed a CT sign) and the tracks for the Hill City-Keystone tourist train. Crossing Old Keystone Road, I stopped to warm up beneath a hazy sun and switch my soaked trail runners for sandals. My Altras were beginning to split out at the sides. I’d used this pair pretty hard, and doubted they’d make it to the end of this hike.

After a short, steep climb, I crossed Highway 244 and soon came to the Big Pine Trailhead. From here, the official GPT route leaves the Centennial Trail for a few miles, so hikers can climb Black Elk Peak, South Dakota’s high point. I had planned to follow the route until I realized that if I continued on the CT, I’d pass right by Mount Rushmore National Memorial.

I’d seen it as a young scout on that first backpacking trip in the early ‘70s and felt no great desire to see it again. But I felt a burning desire at the thought of chow; at minimum, there would be a gift shop where I could buy a Coke, Snickers and Doritos, and given the site’s immense popularity, surely there was a cafeteria or restaurant. At the cost of missing Harney Peak, a mile-long detour, and a few hundred feet of climbing, I chose to break up my day and indulge my growing hiker hunger. I marched off into the Black Elk Wilderness, beaming at visions of stuffing my face. Sorry, South Dakota’s high point; I was on a mission.

The trail through the wilderness rolled up and down over loose rock and dirt and mud churned by horse hooves. But it was beautiful, the weather was perfect, sunny but not too hot, and I dawdled shamelessly to pluck raspberries like a hungry bear.

Alas, what I call “town miles” — the distance to town or a hostel or a restaurant you’re looking forward to — are maddeningly “longer” than regular miles, and by the time I reached the Rushmore spur, I was cranky. The hike up to the memorial was somewhat steep and felt longer than a half mile, and I grumbled the whole way.

But then, I was there. I crossed the road and flowed into a crowd of hundreds across a plaza and into the main viewing area, feeling like an alien trying to pass in a strange, sudden sea of humanity. And then — hallelujah! — I stumbled through the doors of the enormous cafeteria I just knew would be there.

In my “synthetic life” — what some insist on calling “the real world” — I eat virtually no meat. But often on trail, my body yearns for dense protein and salt, and against this craving my vegetarian ethics stood little chance. I ordered the pot roast special, which came with gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables and a roll, and a huge, refillable cup of Coke with tons of ice. Ahhhhh….

Amid swarms of tourists from all over the world, speaking many tongues, I was fortunate enough to score a table in the shade on the outside patio, where I had a perfect view of the four stony presidential visages above. I slammed 20 ounces of freezing Coke straight off, then tore into the food. Now that I was not moving, my hiker stench was evident even to my own olfactory detectors, and I hoped the families nearby didn’t think I was some homeless bum.

I headed back down the hill feeling very happy about my decision. I was full, hydrated and even a tad cleaner, having dodged into the bathroom to scrub my face and neck. After dunking my head in Grizzly Bear Creek, I continued south on the CT.

The next four miles were pleasant enough, highlighted by a sighting of several turkeys, lowlighted by yet another sign snafu. I’ve done trail maintenance, and I know how difficult it is to keep a trail open for the public. And I’m aware that there is no Centennial Trail Conservancy or anything like that. But seriously, I hope someone — anyone — will take a good look at signage on the CT and at least set markers at junctions where there currently are none. Last bitch about the signage on the CT, promise.

As good as I’d felt after gorging myself in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, I became increasingly impatient as the afternoon wore on. As I approached Iron Creek Horse Camp I was surprised to pass a dozen or so people riding mules. I moved to the side of the trail and stood stock still to let them past, but one was especially skittish.

“I don’t know what his problem is,” said his lady rider. “Maybe your poles. Would you mind moving a bit further off?”

The camp itself was quite pleasant, but it was intended for horse (and mule) people and would have cost me $24 for the privilege of setting up my wee tent. So, I decided to fill my water bottles in the stock tank and head on.

“You know you can’t drink that water, don’t you?” said an old guy with a face fenced in by wild, gray hair.

“Yes, sir. I’m treating it,” I said.

“Where you headed?” he asked.

“Today?”

“No, I mean, where you off to?”

“Oh, well, I’ll wind up in Scottsbluff, Nebraska when I’m through.”

He stood there blinking behind his dusty spectacles for a minute.

“On foot?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where’d you come from?

“Bear Butte, up by Sturgis.”

“And you’re walking the whole way?

“Yup.”

His expression didn’t change, but he exuded incredulity.

“Never heard of anybody doing that,” he said.

“Well, that’s the plan.”

He shook his head, mystified, before ambling off to sit in his camp chair next to an RV.

Once I’d watered up, I headed out.

“Here you go,” said the old guy as I walked past, standing to hand me a dripping, cold can of Pepsi. “You look like you could use this.”

“Oh, man, thank you!” I said. I popped it open and in four long swigs drank the whole thing. He reached out for the empty.

“Now, you know you got to watch out for buffalo down through Custer State Park, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir. I’m looking forward to seeing a few.”

“They’re not like cattle, you know.”

“Yes, sir, I do,” I said, feeling a small swell of pride. “I worked as a cowboy for a bunch of years. Didn’t really work around bison except in a feedlot in California, but they were plenty ornery.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Well, you just be sure to give ‘em a wide berth if you see any. Every year seems like some tourist from back east decides to waltz right up and take a snapshot of a big bull who don’t take too kindly to it.”

“I will. Thanks again for the Pepsi.”

The trail crossed into Custer State Park almost immediately and soon crossed Highway 87. I’d only come 17 miles, but it was almost 4 p.m. Grace Coolidge Creek was more like a bog, thanks to frequent trampling by hooves. Cattle or bison, I couldn’t tell.

“Hello!” someone shouted as I squatted there trying to collect water. I looked up to see a neatly dressed couple approaching from the south. “Are you hiking the whole trail?”

“Yes,” I said, “then heading west and south into Nebraska. How about you?”

They were knocking off that summer’s “state parks challenge,” in which people hike to a set of designated trail markers to check off their list. One of this year’s designated markers was just down the trail.

These were the first people I’d seen in 100 miles that I would actually call hikers. Trail riders and people poking around near trailheads, sure, but nobody who seemed to have any inkling that people like me did things like hike 300 miles — or 500 or 3,000. These two did.

“Have you enjoyed it so far?”

“It’s been beautiful and really interesting,” I said. “I’m surprised that I haven’t seen a single backpacker.”

“Welcome to South Dakota,” the woman said. “Outdoor recreation in this part of the world is all about ORVs. We hikers are a minority!”

They said goodbye and headed on.

I climbed a small hillock above the bog, where I found a good spot to pitch my tent, between a scraggly pine and a small wedge of sharp rocks. I laid my sodden, salty clothes on the rocks to dry and set my solar charger in the slanting sunlight.

Dressed only in boxer briefs, I kept hearing a faint grunting sound off to the west. I put on my sandals and decided to see if I could find the source. I first climbed atop a large, granite mound crowning the high point, where I turned 360 degrees to scan the sparsely forested area. I then came upon a huge downed tree on which someone had carefully placed straight, dry limbs and trunks of small trees to form an enclosure that looked to me like a South African kraal.

While poking around the odd structure, I heard the grunt again; it sounded like a brushed-up bull. Bulls, despite their fearsome reputations, are generally very lazy unless stirred by the scent of estrus from a cow or challenged by another male. Many shirk their duties as breeders, preferring to chill out in some cushy bull-cave — ideally, surrounded by easy-to-reach grass, close to a watering hole, far enough from cows that they aren’t disturbed by olfactory compulsions and hidden from the prying eyes of meddlesome cowboys.

Doing my best to echo-locate, I descended the hillock and picked my way through a small grove of aspens before emerging in the grassy drainage, where I could make out a faint trail of trampled grass heading toward the boggy crossing. I stood there for a minute, straining to hear, but was soon chased back to my tent by a frenzy of mosquitoes, obviously thrilled by arrival of a half-naked human, manna from the mosquito gods.

Hours later, I was stirred out of sleep by the same animal noises, only this time much nearer. Grunting, growling, snorting, it was a voice emanating from a very deep cavern indeed. Lying in the dark with heart rate climbing, I thought this is what an ogre would sound like. And it was coming closer.

I knew it wasn’t a bear. Bears don’t sound like that, and sadly, there haven’t been bears in the Black Hills for decades (though some biologists believe that’s changing). And it didn’t sound quite like a bull … at least not a domestic bull.

Holy shit! I thought. Must be a bison.

I strapped on my headlamp and quietly unzipped the tent. Creeping out into the cool, early-morning air, I peered over the small rock outcropping. In the frosty light of a quarter moon, I squinted in the dark to see the bog, half expecting to see red-hot igneous eyes and clouds of sulfurous steam rising from a vast, slow-moving shadow, a figment out of some mythical tale told by cowboys around a campfire at the edges of a great wilderness, long ago … like in the old cowboy song, “Ghost Riders in the Sky”:

An old cowboy went riding out one dark and windy day
Upon a ridge he rested as he went along his way
When all at once a mighty herd of red-eyed cows he saw
Plowing through the ragged skies and up a cloudy draw

Their brands were still on fire and their hooves were made of steel
Their horns were black and shiny and their hot breath he could feel
A bolt of fear went through him as they thundered through the sky
For he saw the riders coming hard and he heard their mournful cries.

Just then, a small voice in my head hissed, Wait! I felt safe on my little promontory, but I didn’t know for sure that a big bison bull, ambling down to the crick for a midnight drink, wouldn’t be enraged by the red beam of my headlamp. My poor wife considers me one of the more reckless people on the planet, but for once in my life, I bowed to caution. Without ever seeing the beast in my backyard, I slunk back to the tent, where I dozed uneasily for a couple of hours, wakened periodically by the creature’s long conversation with itself.

Finally — finally — the sounds of giant hooves sucking mud and the gradually decreasing volume of the beast’s chesty chuffing convinced me that he — I was never in doubt that it was a he, a him, a very large male with a massive, curly ogre’s head — had departed, without ever knowing I was there. Though maybe he lingered so long because in the deep, dim reaches of his primordial brain, he had half-sensed an alien in his midst….

I slept, at last.

Episode 8