I had told the woman I rode horses with that I wanted to do a short hike before leaving Black Hills and she suggested this one. She said it was steep but not too long. 1200 feet of elevation over a 1.25 mile ascent.
A lot of the trail was very rocky which required paying attention to every step.
This was a short hike in a fairly well populated area but I still took care to use my Garmin InReach satellite tracker so Mary could track me and alert authorities if I disappeared. If just a broken leg I could use the device to text people or if really desperate use the SOS button for evacuation. I also pre downloaded the AllTrails app offline map so even if lose cell service my iPhones GPS can work with the mapping app. In fact on way down (much faster and i also used poles on way down) there was a spot where couldn’t tell where trail was (the snow only recently melted so some areas just had rocks, grass (and there no tree markings or anything for trail). But (see next photos). I just walked until I was back on trail.
I am writing now at a State Park outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Very nice wooded campsite. A few other campers here. Site has just bathrooms so glad I had a hot shave and shower this morning at the KOA in Sioux Falls. It was another 400 mile drive today, about 7 hours. It never rained but was cloudy and cold and windy whole way here. I finished the audiobook of A Gentleman in Moscow. It was good but a little too slow paced for a long boring drive thru Minnesota and Wisconsin. Even I get bored of cows eventually. I need to find a faster paced audiobook. Maybe a spy or sci-fi book.