South Dakota: Deadwood and the Mick!

Monday night saw us stay at a hostel in Lead, South Dakota that was really more of a French Chateau. The owner, Joan, an adventurer herself decided that the Black Hills would be the place to finally settle and she decided to open her home as a hostel. Our hostel room consisted of a large, beautifully decorated room with a queen bed and a private bath all for $20 a person. What a deal! The next morning after a brief stop at the nearby mining museum...it was time for the long downhill ride to historic Deadwood. The whole town is filled with so much history, that the town itself is on the National Historic List of historical places. This formerly wild Old West Town was filled with legendary characters like Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and Potato Creek Johnny. Gold, fires, gambling, upscale prostitution, and a mountaintop cemetery adds to the lore. We decided to take one of those narrated bus tours of town and did we have a character of a bus driver! A gifted storyteller, Mike spun a colorful narration of the town's unique history over the hour long tour. Perhaps the most interesting was a visit to Mt. Moriah cemetery which stands atop a mountain high over the city. With the lack of space and lack of funds, the poor were often buried less than 2 ft. into the ground which meant that erosion and time would have the dead literally coming out of their graves! A town bankrupt after the gold mines closed struggled mightily keeping the dead down, before gambling revitalized the town in recent years. Mt. Moriah also is the final resting place of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. Just 6 weeks into his stay in town, Wild Bill was shot in the back of the head by Jack McCall who was sick of losing money in poker games to Wild Bill. The hand that fell out of his hand...pair of 8 and aces...forever immortalized as the dead man's hand. Famous saloon number 10, the only bar on the list of protected historic places...has an exhibition of Wild Bill's death chair and routinely re-enacts Wild Bill's death during the summer months.
After the tour, it was time to hop back on the bikes for the long ride on the Mickelson trail to Hill City. The Mick was one of the special things that drew us out to the Black Hills. A former rail corridor that had been converted during the rail to trails program, the Mick winds its way for 109 miles through the scenic Black Hills from Deadwood to Edgemont. The early going was tough as we traveled over 15 miles uphill which wore us out pretty good. Finally the downhill came, and we cruised the next 12 or so miles to the little town of Rochford. Rochford's pop sign advertises just 8 people, but it has the Moonshine Gulch Saloon! Wow, what a place...there are thousands of caps from all over the world hanging from the ceiling. Fantastic burgers and beer as well! Across the street is the Rochford Mall with another sign advertising itself as the
"Small of America." Interestingly enough, Rochford has the largest volunteer fire department I've ever seen with 4 garage bays or 1 firetruck per every 2 people. The Moonshine Gulch was not without its characters. There was the young guy pounding away on the porch making Indian head pennies complaining on how the work was interfering with his beer drinking. The owner of Rocheford Riders bike shuttle service was also there enjoying a cold one which proved fortituous for us. See, our long early uphill wiped both of us out as well as our travel time expectations and our stop at Rochford came with less than 2 hours of daylight left and still 22 miles to go. Night travel was ill advised for there are mountain lions in the Hills that are very active at night. But, the owner of Rochford Riders had pity on us, understood our predicament, and volunteered to pick us up 8 miles down the trail in Mystic. That worked out perfectly as the Rocheford-Mystic part of trail was perhaps the most scenic stretch and was mostly downhill! Upon arrival in Mystic, there he was waiting and so we managed to work a little hitchhiking into our plans....always good for the adventure aspect of things! Interestingly enough, the guy was a former sailor and iceboater...so we had some interesting discussion on those sports on the ride to Hill City. Enjoy the pics.