CHAPTER VII

Sturgis

The road to Sturgis is pretty well crowded with cars headed for the Tri-State Roundup at Belle Fourche. We arrive about four o’clock. The next hour is spent in getting boots repaired, getting haircuts and in replenishing the food supply.

We still have a good supply of eggs, butter, bacon, fruit, and vegetables which we packed up on the farm before starting the trip. At each tourist camp we get plenty of fresh vegetables and milk. We appreciate the vegetable and store service of the camps. It is excellent. This, with the food stove, utensils and dishes we brought with us on the trip, makes our food question simple and economical as well as highly satisfactory. We enjoy every meal.

Sturgis has one of the best tourist parks we encountered on the trip. The camp is equipped with excellent little cottages for those who prefer them. It has a main camp building containing running spring water, modern toilet facilities with hot and cold water, shower baths and a laundry. Bear Butte Creek flows directly behind our tent. Above our heads are electric lights. Beside the thrill and exhilaration of camping the conveniences are almost equal to those enjoyed in a first class hotel. The nice shady camp site, however, to the person enjoying the out-of-doors makes a hotel feel like a dungeon. The tent takes but a few minutes to set up and it adds tremendously to the pleasure of an outing.

We get a good night’s rest in the Sturgis park and rise early the following morning to partake of the nice hot flap-jacks, bacon, coffee and oatmeal. (We will need it all before lunch time).

We start out bright and early to climb Bear Butte. We take trail No. 79 out to the northeast of Sturgis. We leave the highway a few miles out and take the Bear Butte trail. What looked like a mile or two proves to be seven or eight, and what looked like a small mound proves to be a huge formation rising nearly a thousand feet above its base.

We had hoped to prance right up to the top on short notice. Our troubles start when we cannot decide whether we are supposed to go up the east or south slope. We find later that either is sufficiently difficult. We finally flounder around to a farm house near the south slope, leave the car and start up.

The slope is steep and progress slow. The whole party of us begin the climb. When we reach the shale slope and have to climb instead of walk, only three of us are still going. Even our shoes show the effects of the rocks. Well, we climb for an hour and finally find ourselves on the top of this promontory which we have by this time learned to respect. The pictures show the size of the rocks compared with the humans climbing them.

The view from here is excellent. We can see Mt. Roosevelt, Harney Peak, White Rocks and other peaks with which we are acquainted standing out in distant relief. The plains stretch out for miles and miles to the north and east, and the picturesque mountains are spread in the other directions. It seems almost as though this peak towers above the entire surrounding country on all sides. The view is well worth the hard climb necessary to attain it. The U. S. Geological Survey marker on the top indicates that the height is 4439 feet above the sea level, 987 feet above the city of Sturgis which, is 3452 feet. (See appendix.)

We descend in somewhat better time than it took us to go up, have lunch and return to camp. From here we take trail 24 for about two miles out to Ft. Meade, a military post. Here we watch a polo game and guard mount. In the camp are stationed about 750 U. S. regular army artillery men and cavalrymen.

While at Sturgis we should take the Boulder Canyon road to Deadwood but we miss this scenery as well as Rim Rock Drive above Rapid Canyon. Boulder Canyon is one of the most picturesque roads in the Hills, so enormous are its perpendicular figured rock walls.