Climbing the Butte

Several days ago, we were contacted by a friend who saw that we were in the Rapid City area. She said we must visit the Bear Butte State Park. She had visited it twice, once when she was quite young and once several years ago. Since we were in the area, we thought it would be something we could do. We didn't have much of a clue what we were getting into, but why not.

We got up this morning and grabbed breakfast and headed out. We stopped in at the Rapid City Farmers Market. We like to visit farmers markets if we can, just to see what all is available. Most of them have a variety of venders, but this one was mostly produce. We did buy a loaf of tear able pizza bread. We also bought a mushroom log. Yes, log with mushroom plugs that will give us an abundance of mushrooms next year. Well, that is the hope. Then we headed out to visit the Butte.

Bear Butte was about half an hour from Rapid City. The morning was cool but by the time we arrived at the park the temps were starting to climb, and it was obvious the day was going to get warm. We bought our day pass and found our way to the visitor station. We knew we would be hiking up a trail, but sometimes ignorance is quite blissful. We made sure we had plenty of water and started our trek. We did see a pretty big hill in front of us and thought "we got this!" The first part of the trail was fairly easy and not too steep. We were feeling pretty good and kept hiking/climbing. Soon the climb began to get steeper, and the trail got rougher. It was often covered with rocks, broken, loose, and sometimes very solid. It was the kind of climb that was quite deceiving. We kept thinking we were reaching the top, just to take a turn and realizing there was still plenty to go. Just about the time we thought we would be getting close; we would see people on the trail in the distance and quite a bit higher than us. We took lots of breaks and kept sipping on our water bottles and kept on climbing. Finally, we met someone that was on their way down and they pointed up the mountain and said, "there is the platform, it is on the top." We weren't sure whether we should laugh or cry, it still seemed a long way off. We started out again and soon we were actually at the base, and we climbed a bunch of steep steps to the platform and joined a number of other hikers that had already completed the trek. There was a group of older hikers, well, my age as they too had their 50th class reunion and hiking Bear Butte was on the list of activities for the group.

We rested a while and then headed back down. We walked with the old folk for a while and then finally we stayed ahead of them and finished our hike back down. One of them said it was about a 1200-foot elevation gain and then that far back down. It ended up being about 2 miles up and 2 miles back down again. It took about an hour and half to the summit and then an hour back down.

We left the park and found an ice cream shop and enjoyed a treat. I think we both earned all the calories.

It was a good day, but the shower sure felt good when we returned.Read more