2024 Black Hills Bounty (Day 5) - Back on the BackBone Grande, At Last

At last, my love has come along

My lonely days are over, and life is like a song, oh yeah.

At last, the skies above are blue

My heart was wrapped up in clover, the night I looked at you.

At Last, Mack Gordon & Harry Warren (1941)

Castle Peak Road, USFS Low Standard Road 181.
(image by Paul Brasby)

Day 5 of the 2024 Black Hills Bounty.

After a rough start and audibles every day, we fully load up bikes to bikepack the BackBone Grande route from Hill City to Spearfish, as planned.

At last.

Early climbing on USFS Low Standard Road 389 past Gold Mountain Mine.
(image by Paul Brasby)

The sky is blue above USFS Low Standard Road 389.1A.

Back on the BackBone Grande, Bounty riders rolled north out of Hill City on the Mickelson Trail for a few miles to dive deep into the Black Hills. After a short stop at the refurbished Gold Mountain Mine along USFS Low Standard Road 389, we cranked up rough roads to ridge line views of higher granite peaks, now far behind to the south. In the Heart of the Hills lies the heart of this year's Black Hills Bounty.

Pace and distance dropped, not only from the terrain and road surface, but from the weight of bikes fully loaded for the first time all week. That extra 30 pounds, or so, required significantly more power to hoist man and machine over hills. More to the point, riding fully loaded demands a mindset dislodged from that of conventional day rides.

It's all about the journey.

Spinning up the home stretch on South Rapid Creek Road, USFS Primary Road 231.
(image by Paul Brasby)

Approaching Black Fox Camp on South Rapid Creek Road, USFS Primary Road 231.
(image by Paul Brasby)

Emerging from the first stretch of Low Standard Roads, we turned back on the Mickelson Trail for a series of bridges and tunnels leading to the Mystic townsite and trailhead. That place was busy. In addition to a steady stream of informal day riders, two separate national touring companies, each with more than a dozen riders, gathered there for guided tours. Also, a group of eight horsewomen from Idaho were saddling up their steeds for a day on the Mickelson Trail. Standing room only at the small shelter. 

Ahead awaited Castle Peak Road, USFS Low Standard Road 181, a favorite rough road climb through the dense forest, with a creek to one side and a mountain side to the other. As usual, Castle Peak Road offered a host of chunky rocks and plenty of pot-holes, mostly filled with recent rainfall. After passing a gorgeous campground, the pitch steepened to reach yet another ridge line. Then we quickly dropped to Rochford for a late lunch at the iconic Moonshine Gulch Saloon and lightly spun up a few miles on bucolic South Rapid Creek Road to Black Fox Campground.

All in all, it's a solid day of bikepacking on the BackBone Grande.

At last.

USFS Black Fox Campground.

Here's a link to the Black Hills Bounty Page, which describes and links all blog posts for every post for every year of this ride (2021-present). Black Hills Bounty Page.

At Last, Etta James (1960).

At Last, Jahmene Douglas (2014).