52 FALL 2021 ISSUE 01 / VOL . 03

SNOWGOER . COM 53 for fly-in vacationers ) on I-90 and then powering through occasional snow drifts on twisting Highway 14 into Deadwood . Stressed knuckles occasionally turned white when the trailer danced behind us , but the white stuff coming out of the sky warmed our hearts .

After cruising Deadwood ’ s historic Main Street , we found the Deadwood Gulch Resort on the southwest edge of town – it was mostly dark , except for the brightly flashing lights in the casino on the far end of the buidling . Upon checking in , the resort staff told us the trolley that usually takes folks back-and-forth to downtown Deadwood was grounded for the night due to the snow and high winds .

Pulling back the shades in our motelstyle room the next morning , we saw the payoff from all of the weather-related chaos : fresh snow everywhere ! An old pickup and front-end loader were trying to clear the parking lot , but more importantly the snowmobile trail that runs through the end of the lot ( Trail 7 ) had already been groomed . It was go time .

Trail 7 weaves through the remainder of Deadwood , over fancy bridges and behind a few businesses , then crosses highway 85 and 385 before the first decision needs to be made : A right at the Y take riders into the neighboring mining town of Lead while staying left on Trail 7 gets you into prime riding country more quickly . With full fuel tanks and no need for food , we went left .

The snowmobile trail soon followed the edge of a steep cliff off to the left , though unlike many other geographic features a rider comes across , this one wasn ’ t created by volcanic eruptions or other upheavals . Instead , we were riding along the upper edge of the Wasp Mine , and thus next to the massive hole that was dug , blasted and otherwise unearthed between 1893 and 1920 . According to an informative sign at a trailside shelter , more than 100,819 ounces of gold and 158,780 ounces of silver were pulled from the earth at this site by 1920 . Ounces may not sound like much , but at today ’ s prices , that ’ s $ 124 million worth of

gold and $ 2.3 million worth of silver that was sitting in the ground waiting to be claimed – no wonder it attracted a crowd !

The history was interesting , but we were there to ride , so we moved on , motoring south and then west on a combination of trails that let us get reacquainted with the Black Hills National Forest .

The Black Hills were named from a translation of a Lakota Indian phrase “ paha sapa ,” which means “ hills that are black ” – so called because , from a distance , the towering hills that rise above the prairie look dark because of the dense forests . It ’ s true , there are a millions of trees out there ,