Hiking Crow Peak

So the other day i finally had the chance to hike Crow Peak. It seems like every time you go into the northern hills its just kind of taunts you, which makes people like myself want to bag it even more. Even though its not one of the top 10 tallest peaks in the hills Crow Peak is the farthest north peak in the hills and offers a commanding view all the northern hills.The trail head is pretty easy to find and once you go through the gate you immediately start climbing. My first impressions as i began the hike was the awesome state of the trail. Many other trails in the hills and i feel like trails with high usage have liter and graffiti throughout so when i see a trail like the Crow Peak trail without all these things I get pretty excited. On top of that the trail itself was a well built and maintained trail. Nice grade, no washouts and switchbacks a plenty. Putting all these together made for a great trail experience. Its a fairly straight shot to the top, only one trail branch you have to watch out for (just a 1/2 mile out and back spur with a nice little view) but if your focus is on reaching the peak sticking to the right at this spur will see you there. Around 3/4 of the way up you hit a nice little scree field tucked into a gully with a really neat view. From this point you have a couple steep switchbacks till you come to the ridge line which has a few great camping spots on it if you were interested in camping for a sunrise. The final 100 yards is just open air with a little ground cover and a huge grove of aspen which is really cool to see on a peak like that. Finally the peak, at 5,760 feet you've reached the top after a climb of 1,563 feet and 3.3 miles to one of the most peaceful peaks I've yet to reach in the black hills. From the top you'll see Bear Butte to the east, Spearfish Peak to the south east, Terry Peak to the south and to the west you have a clear view of the Wyoming portion of the black hills all the way to Sundance. Unfortunately I was unable to catch a glimpse of the bighorns from the peak which was one of my hopes but the view did not disappoint. All in all the Crow Peak hike was a great hike, fairly easy to access (I saw people of all shapes and sizes and a family with little ones) and one i would recommend to any visitor or first timer to the black hills!

Luke

Heres some directions to the trail head if you would would like them: You can get off of I-90 at exit 8 at McGuigan rd and head south. Go to the second rd which is hillsview and take a right (west). Your then going to go past 5 roads and then take a left on the 6th which is higgins gultch rd. Your then going to go appr. 4 miles till you see a turn off and a gate on your right hand side and then your all set!

Devils Washtub

Most of the time if someone had asked me to go hiking in the middle of February I would have scoffed and added another layer just for thinking of something so cold. But if the weather gives me a 65+ degree day in the middle of blizzard season i'm going to make the most of it dam it! So the night before I go I start looking at the map to find a good place to go and i'm thinking "find a good place to go spring turkey hunting" but thankfully i have a girlfriend who thinks "lets go somewhere no one really knows about". Thus the search for Devils Washtub begins. Going from different scraps of information we'd gathered from passing conversations with different local hikers we were able to figure out at least where to start. Heading south down spearfish canyon was pretty sweet considering the river was raging and the small waterfall along the cliff were still frozen. So many times i go through certain area in my travels and can't help think of the first people to pass through this area and what they thought when they saw what i'm seeing. Anyways i digress after passing Bridal Falls we traveled about 1.5-2 miles till we came to the first road sign we'd seen marked "Cleopatra rd" which we pulled onto and parked right before a bridge crossing. Now me being the comfort over practicality hiker that I am I wore shorts cause it was 65+ in Rapid but up here in Spearfish Canyon there's still a foot of snow and its a little chilly to say the least when your not in the sun. Needless to say I was a little skeptical getting out of the car but knowing a "zip up the man suit" from my girlfriend would come if I said anything helped me make up my mind that this was going to happen. So we take off and find the trail head just across the bridge and to the right and to our surprise its a pretty worn down and traveled trail even with all the snow on the ground. Now it didn't take long for us to realize that we'd stumbled on a gem of a hike. With the echo of the creek running under the foot of snow that still covered most of the creek contrasted with the stillness of everything else surrounding it this hike had the makings of being something you'd write in your blog about. So while she slipped all over the trail and I tried to capture what we were seeing with my camera we slowly made our way down this canyon. Going into this hike we really didn't know how far it was to the washtub so we were surprised to find it was only around a mile in if that. Now the snow in a way added and detracted from our experience because once we got to the washtub we couldn't really see the deep pools that it was known for but we did see other interesting things. The cliff wall that is right next to the washtub while pretty impressive and attractive for its climbing potential was also the ugliest part of our trek since it was covered with graffiti. Nothing is more frustrating than to see people who hardly leave a mark in our society feel the need to boost their self importance by leaving their mark on nature and we also saw on our way back down that many people had carved into tree's along the trail as well. Just sad to see. Anyways out and back only took us a little over an hour even with the slippery trail. Hope this is helpful to anyone who is looking for those little tucked away gems of the Black Hills!

"There's no better companion than the trail. It doesn't care what your reasons for visiting are. It gladly waits and gives generously to those who seek it. It can serve as confidant, counselor and ferocious teacher all at the same time. The trail overflows with discovery, breakthroughs and epiphanies not the least of which is the simple feeling of freedom"