We confined ourselves to South Dakota and found plenty of trails available. In fact, there may be two to three weeks' worth of unique riding in the area. The Black Hills National Forest map is completely overwhelming, as the area is roughly 30 miles across and 80 miles from north to south. This 240-square-mile region is covered with a spider's web of paved, gravel and two-track forest roads. Trails run among all of these. In fact, the biggest problem we had was figuring out where to begin riding.
We had some luck searching for the larger areas located between the paved roads and blessed with lots of ORV-legal trails. What we found, however, was that some of those offered great riding, while others were open, flat areas that weren't as exciting to ride. The key is the geography, which varies in the hills. Parts have steep valleys and heavy pine cover. The riding there was quite challenging, and we found several hillclimbs that were near the limits of our machines and skills.
Thankfully, we obtained some good tips on where to ride from Ross Brown, the information officer for the Off-Road Riders Association, an ORV club formed in the early 1990s to help keep the region's riding areas open. After Brown generously directed us to an area to ride, we drove down Highway 308, going west from Hill City and just past Tigerville. Finding trailheads is almost impossible, so we located an open area, unloaded and headed into the brush. It took us a while to discover a turn-in to the trail system. I'd suggest finding a numbered trail that comes out on the main road before parking.
The trail system we uncovered was vast and surprisingly well-marked. Trails are numbered, and most of the intersections indicate some of the numbers of the trails. The area is not nearly as easy to navigate as an established network such as the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System in West Virginia, but it's not hard to keep track of where you are if you follow the map carefully.
We rode twisting two-track through pine forests and up some steep climbs, staying in the area east of Deerfield Lake. The lake is aptly named, as we spotted dozens of whitetail and mule deer bouncing through the brush ahead of our machines. On a long day's ride, we saw only one other quad on the trail, and we never took the same trail twice. This small portion of the Black Hills could provide a couple of days of riding!
One of the highlights of our day was a stop recommended by Brown, a little bar in Rochford called Moonshine Gulch. The place has great burgers, friendly owners and a colorful atmosphere. We had lunch there twice.
On day two, we ventured farther south and rode near Bear Mountain Lookout, not far from the Crazy Horse Monument. This area has extensive snowmobile trails, which slowed us a bit. Snowmobiles take precedence in the Hills, so winter ATV riders should be careful to avoid those and stay on the trails not designated for sleds
Incidentally, the weather in the Black Hills permits ORV riding almost year-round. Our February ride saw unseasonably warm temperatures that ran as high as 50 degrees Fahrenheit/10 degrees Celsius. The snow levels were low at that time, and we were able to run virgin trails with medium-lugged tires without any trouble.
In fact, we found several networks of trails that hadn't been touched in several months, so we were breaking through virgin powder. On one of those routes, Peil and I spotted a trail running to the top of a 5000-foot bald peak across the valley. We took it to the base of the mountain and wound our way through a stand of pine and up a steep, rocky incline to the top. The view was unfettered and primal, with nothing but pine forests and craggy mounds of granite stretching as far as the eye could see. The land appears much as it did when Wild Bill rode here in the late 1800s, when the wilderness was truly wild.