The Dakota Territory cruisers gathered together at Baken Park on a beautiful October morning.  Members that showed up for the trail ride were; Mike and Mikala Heitland, Rayland and Korbin Bender, Kent Renaud, Charlie Rupp, Donna Kinsella, and Rhonda Mumm.  The goal for the day was to head out to the western edge of the Black Hills so we could do some GPSing on some roads and areas we think need to be added to the trail system that will soon be implemented in the Black Hills.

 The first order of business was heading out past Custer via highway 16.  We made a last minute stop in Custer to top off the gas and then we proceeded out past Wind Cave.  We headed down the dirt road heading for Gillette Canyon it has been a long time since any of us were out in the area.  It has changed a lot since the Jasper fire, as a result we took a few wrong turns and had to question some of the ways the roads go now. 

 We missed the entrance to Gillette Canyon on our first pass but discovered another awesome area that would make for a great Rock Crawling trail.  We stopped and took some weigh points and took some pictures and we all drooled a little bit over the rocks in the gully.  We eventually found our way into Gillette Canyon and proceeded to venture down it when we discovered why it didn’t make it on any of the trail maps.  The dead trees were everywhere as a result of the fire.  The road is as we remembered it a nice 3+ trail with some great side options.  If we do get this on the map of trails it will require a lot of work.  But from what we were able to hike it looked like the fun we once envisioned it. 

 Mike Heitland took his first trail ride with the Dakota Territory Cruisers as a passenger with Jim VanDeVen when we took an exploratory Trail ride through Gillette Canyon way back when.

 By the time we discovered it was going to be impassable without chain saws the day was pretty much over.  We headed back out towards our way home we planned on taking 6-mile road home but ended up heading south.  So we found our way back out to Highway 16.  Rayland and Mike along with their children were going to spend the night camping up at Moon, so that on Sunday they could GPS another route out in the area that we also want to get on the map.  So they headed Northwest and the rest of us headed east. 

 The day started out Sun shiny and warm and ended on a lot breezier note and cloud covered, we got rain on our way home. 

 We had a good day.  It is always interesting to see how devastated fire can make the landscape, but it also opened our eyes to a lot that we had never seen before.

                                                                                       Rhonda Mumm