French Creek Horse Camp - Custer, South Dakota

 

French Creek Horse Camp is located inside the Custer State Park. It is a super popular camp among equestrians.

Horses get a decent sized corral with no cover.

The horse on the far right is a mare belonging to another camper. Lennox did not like her. He was baring his teeth at her and threatening to bite her, so she was staying in the far corner of her corral as far away from him as she could get.

Someone comes by every day or so to collect the manure to keep the flies down.

The campsites are good sized with plenty of room for large LQs. Each site has a picnic table and a fire ring.

No wifi and cell service is sketchy.

Campsites have electric hook-up, but no water or sewer.

There is an RV dump next to the shower house.

For water you fill up your tanks or jugs at a faucet next to the shower house. This is for water for the LQ.

For water for the horses, you are supposed to pump the water from the creek.

We have a large tank we use for spare water, so we used that to bring water to our trailer and the horses.

Sunset over the Black Hills

There is a lodge about an hour ride from the campground called Blue Bell Lodge. 

So, we did a Ride and Eat to the lodge.

The lodge is really nice. Great wifi. The food is mostly buffalo items. I ate the buffalo chili and Ari had the buffalo stew. The food is really good and the staff is quite kind.

We set up a high line for the horses and tied them up to the high line while we ate. The horses got to graze on the high grass while we enjoyed a nice lunch.

The camper with the mare makes her own hellhats. A hellhat is a combined helmet and cowboy hat brim. She showed me some of her work and she is quite talented. I bought one of her hats.

Check out the gem work.

The trails out of the camp are quite beautiful. Lots of water crossings.

Without internet service, we would drive into Custer so we could catch up on email and play on the internet. We usually would camp out at the Mount Rushmore Brewery.

The servers became familiar with us and one server made Ari this really nice Sangria.

Iron Creek Horse Camp - Custer, South Dakota - Mount Rushmore

 

Iron  Creek Horse Camp is located on federal land and is a primitive campground.

The best way to get into the campground is to use American Center Road. A dirt road coming in from Custer.

The horses are sharing a large pen near to where we are parked. No cover, but it is shady and they are quite content.

The campsite is interesting because instead of having pads or even designated places for you to pull in your trailer, you are expected to park parallel to the road. Needless to say, it can be a tight squeeze.

I picked Campsite #1 and that was the wrong call. Better campsites would be #8 or #9 as those are closest to the manure pile and the only water source for the horses.

The water for the horses is a large water trough. 

To get water to our horses, we moved the water tank in the back of our trailer to the back of our truck, drove to the trough. We used a water pump to pump water from the trough into the tank.

We powered the pump using our Jackery.

This is our neighbor at Campsite #2 and this trailer is adorable. It looks like a tiny house. It has hydraulic lifts that raises it up for towing and then lowers on wood blocks to stabilize it.

This is actually an ice castle fishing trailer used for ice fishing, but I had never seen one and think it's pretty darn cool.

One of the main reasons I wanted to camp here is this is the best location to ride to Mount Rushmore.

We rode Centennial Trail to Blackberry Trail to Mount Rushmore Nat. Monument.

This is not a trail for beginner horses or riders.

The trail has several water crossings, lots of rocks, and several narrow sections.

Both horses wore their boots.

It is a gorgeous ride and well worth it.

It took us an hour and forty minutes to reach the equestrian area of Mount Rushmore.

There are hitching posts for the horses.

You can see the monument behind me.

It was an overcast and drizzly day, so I wore my riding poncho.

There are two large picnic tables. We had packed some sandwiches and plenty of water for the ride.

In order to visit the monument, you walk across the highway and through the parking area. I didn't feel comfortable leaving the horses unattended, so I walked over and bought us a couple of ice creams. The ice cream allegedly uses Thomas Jefferson's recipe. The ice cream is quite good and there are about six different flavors available. A portion costs $5.25. The portions are quite large. I should have ordered just one and shared it with Ari.

You can also use the restrooms at the monument. No vault toilet at the equestrian area. You also are away from the tourists, so you don't need to worry about people coming up and annoying your horses.

Riding back to the campground.

There are beautiful and plentiful wildflowers to see right now. It is really lush.

My horse can't resist stopping for the occasional snack.

We had been warned not to drive Hwy 87 which goes through Custer State Park with the LQ. I was especially warned to avoid the tunnels as tourists will get stuck in the tunnels every so often. The tunnels are 8 ft wide and about 9 ft high.

It is really a tight squeeze to get through.

We had to pull in our mirrors so they wouldn't get scratched.

Prepare to feel the squeeze!

The views from this section of the road are astounding and there are several places to pull out and just gawk at the Black Hills and the rock formations. It was well worth the detour, but Ari says he never wants to drive it again in his lifetime - too twisty and too narrow for his taste. He says, of course, I liked it because I was the passenger and got to enjoy the views.

Today was a short ride as my horse is TIRED. 

We rode the Southern part of the Centennial Trail. It was a flat easy ride.

Tomorrow we head to French Creek Horse Camp. No more bucket rides in our immediate future. We have crossed off Hell Canyon and Mount Rushmore from our list.

 

Hell Canyon Trail - Custer, SD

 I had resigned myself that I wasn't going to be able to do this bucket list ride at Hell Canyon. Then, Ari went out to feed the horses the morning we were planning to leave. He met another camper who had rented the campground's stock trailer and was planning to ride Hell Canyon. They had a couple of empty slots in the trailer and offered to give us a lift to the trailhead and let us ride with the group.

By trailering in and out to the trailhead, that took a good 14 miles off what is a 21 mile ride. That put the ride down to about 7 miles, which is totally doable.

The trailhead hadn't gotten any bigger, but there weren't too many cars in the lot and Bob, our trail leader, was able to turn the trailer around for an easy departure.

This is the start of the trail.

There are a couple of water crossings on the trail. They are pretty easy.

Ari loved the ride and said it shouldn't be called Hell Canyon Trail, but Paradise Canyon Trail. It is quite beautiful.

There are several rock formations along the lower canyon trail. 

Paul, one of the campground owners, told me this trail is not for green horses or for green riders. It is not an easy ride. 

The group wanted to avoid the upper canyon trail - which is very narrow, so instead of riding along the side of the canyon - steep and narrow trail - they opted to ride over the hill bushwhacking to the other side.

My horse gets really excited when there is no trail. He starts to lope and gets out of control. I ended up dismounting and started walking him to be safer, but the temperature was in the mid-90s and we are at high altitude. It didn't take long for me to start to feel heat exhaustion.

Ari got me back in the saddle and led my horse and his horse.

There was a brief period when Ari and I were on our own away from the rest of the group to allow my horse to settle down. Ari got back in the saddle. I was in the saddle and feeling better. We started looking for the trail, figuring we would meet up with the group at the trailer.

What we didn't know was that the group was worried about us and looking for us.

What the group didn't know or realize was that we ride Tennessee Walkers and they were mostly on quarter horses, so while we may have started a quarter mile behind them, we were now a couple of miles ahead of them.

We ended up riding back to meet them, so they wouldn't be concerned.

On our way back to the trailhead, we saw this flock of wild mountain goats crossing the highway.

We were a group of seven riders and everyone was super nice.

Bob, the trail leader, was riding a four year old mare he is trying to train. The mare did pretty well. She spooked a couple of times at a big rock (the same rock coming and going) and she had problems staying on the goat trail - the upper canyon trail. She slipped a few times and lost her footing and Bob nearly fell off. Bob ended up dismounting and walking her to be safe.

Another rider was on a big draft cross and she dismounted and walked the narrow goat trail as well in order to stay safe.

We rode about three hours total. I was still feeling ill when we got back to the campground, so we opted to stay an extra night at the campground to allow me time to recover from the heat exhaustion. My heart rate was still elevated and I was feeling faint and nauseous for a good four hours after we got back.

One of the other riders told me she also felt some heat exhaustion even though she had stayed on her horse with no problems.

This was a good group to ride with because they were very considerate of the other riders in the group and they didn't take any unnecessary risks. Nobody was trying to show off how great they were or pulling any stupid stunts.

I am so happy to be able to check this ride off my bucket list and feel really blessed that the group allowed us to join them on the ride.

Hell Canyon Horse Camp - Custer, South Dakota

 

Our next stop was Hell Canyon Horse Camp - located 8 miles west of Custer.

Our horses have one of their favorite types of accommodation - a decent sized corral with shade.

This camp features wifi - which is actually pretty decent. There is a camp store where they sell tack as well as items from local artisans.  They also have public toilets and showers in the office. There are small cabins to rent as well.

The owners are from Louisiana and they are a hoot.

There are open corrals as well as stalls inside the barn - so you have choices as to where you keep your horses.

Sites feature full hook-up and most sites have a picnic table.

You aren't supposed to hook up by your trailer. The camp provides these very cool carts with wheels to help you move your tack into one of the tack rooms in the barn.

Here is our tack stowed in the barn.

The previous camp owner is a farrier and he came out to trim our horses. Their feet are holding up really well.

A couple of other campers offered to take us out on the trails and show us some of the local mines, so off we went. They were riding two mules - both mollies (meaning females). My horse had a hissy fit most of the ride because he did not care for the mules one bit.

We ended up parting ways before the end of the ride because my horse was throwing a temper tantrum over it.

Ari wanted to tour Jewel Cave, which is close by. After our experience at Wind Cave, we got to Jewel Cave before they opened the ticket kiosk. There was already a line for tickets, but we managed to get tickets for the second tour.

They were running a modified tour because the elevators are undergoing repairs. 

The tour only included one large room of the cave, so we were a bit disappointed.

We had been hoping to ride Hell Canyon Trail, but it is a 21 mile round trip from the campground. The owners will drop you off, but that only takes about 7 miles off the ride. I am just not up for that long a ride, plus we were told the trail is very narrow and not that safe.

I went into Hill City which is about 20 minutes away from the campground to go grocery shopping.

The market is called Krull's and they have the best cinnamon rolls I have bought so far.

There is a lot of public art and I really liked this status of a horse in the downtown area - the horse is made up of different scrap metal parts. 

Here is the rear flank of the statue

This is the front flank of the statue

And there is this little foal chasing after the larger horse.

The farrier had thought my horse was sore, so we brought out Kat Davies to give both horses a massage. She said they both were actually in really good shape.

We managed two more rides during our stay - timing them on days when it wasn't too hot.

It was fairly easy riding, although I was nervous riding my horse after his hissy fit on the first ride. He didn't act up once the mules were gone, though.

Next stop - Iron Creek Horse Camp.