Follow Along for 48 Hours in Spearfish
Day One: Hiking Trails & Making Memories
Now I am no morning person (quite frankly, I’m a morning grouch), but my friends are visiting, and I’ve taken it upon myself to be their personal tour guide. After picking them up from the hotel, I drive them over to Nevada Street, where we begin our hike up lookout mountain at 5:30 a.m. An early start, but after walking through pine trees, we reach the rocky top to watch the sun rise over Spearfish. Kicking the day off on a high point.
After that, breakfast is a must! Craving a place with pancakes and waffles? Spearfish has a wide selection of restaurants and coffeehouses with the most delectable breakfast options. Afterwards we head toward Spearfish Canyon for the second hike of the day: 76 Trail. While only about 1.5 mile round trip, the hike uphill and steep, but the view is absolutely breathtaking! You can see a vast stretch of the canyon from the top.
Successfully making it down, we headed toward the Roughlock Falls trail. My friends kept commenting on the beauty of the trail, with the pine trees and greenery. I told them they needed to come back during the winter where people snowshoe to see the waterfall frozen. Getting up to the falls we took plenty of photos with the sparkling water in the background. A packed lunch was had at the nearby picnic tables.
Alas, we had to walk back to the car and leave the falls behind. So, after starting up the car again we drove west onto Tinton Road for a 20-minute drive to Iron Creek Lake. A hidden campground and lake where you can fish and swim. We decided to rent a few kayaks and paddleboards to go onto the lake. Paddling around, we all enjoyed laying down and enjoying the sun shining above us and splashing one another with water.
An hour and a half later, we turned in our equipment and were ready for a snack! Back down to Spearfish our next destination was Main Street. With ice cream, popcorn, candy and even acai bowls offered at the downtown shops, there was a treat for everyone!
We meandered around downtown checking out the local shops. After wandering around a bit, we decided to it was time for dinner (the sweet treat was our appetizer). Spearfish has over 40 easteries, it was hard to choose where to go out of all the great selections. But you can always tell when the foods good when the whole table is silent, busy eating the delicious food. After supper it was time to drop my friends off for an early rest for we wanted to get another early start in the morning.
Day Two: Adventures Await
At 7 :30 a.m. we were ordering muffins and coffee. (Spearfish has over ten great places for all your coffee needs.) Then we headed straight for Spearfish City Park where we unloaded everyone’s bikes and headed out for our planned bike ride to the canyon and back. We passed plenty of dogwalkers and families on their own bikes along the trail. There was a breeze in the air which made biking much cooler in the sun. We decided to make our return trip to the park into a race (sadly I did not win).
We parked our bikes next to the creek and decided to take a break and cool off in the creek. A short break however as we had brought our pickleball paddles along and found a court available. Laughs were shared and scores were tallied, and it was already time for lunch at.
Fueled up, we were ready for some more biking. Old Baldy trailhead was the next stop of the day. As we zipped along, we even passed a few deer. It took us awhile to loop around the 5.7-mile trail, but when we returned to our car, we were all tired.
Since we didn’t have time yesterday to stop, we made the drive back to city park where we took an hour to explore the fish hatchery grounds. Fed some fish, got a tour around the old railcar and the Booth House; I was glad to see my friends enjoy learning the hatchery’s history.
After our little detour we decided to go out for pizza. We got to sit outside on the patio where we had a great view of surrounding Black Hills. The sun was setting just beginning to set and stars were poppping up in the sky.
Sadly, the night had to come to an end as my friends were leaving in the morning. As I dropped them off at their hotel, I was already planning for their next trip to Spearfish.
