Published in: Rides

Rob Watt gunned his KTM990 as he left the Black Hills to receive the first big surprise of the day—an endless sea of rolling hills and lush green grass stretching north to the horizon. Watt, who has mapped Back Country Discovery (BDR) rides in Colorado, Utah and Arizona, said that Day Three of the four-day July adventure ride in western South Dakota held the biggest surprises….

As Watt and the other riders of the Dakota Adventure Loop headed north, they entered a world of big beautiful hay fields, and grassy pastures with cattle and buffalo, “like a scene out of a high-grade western movie.” Then he added, “Bill Hearne (ride organizer out of Rapid City, South Dakota) put it best, you don’t need to ride fast, or to blaze through there. Just take it slow and enjoy what you’ll see.”

A hundred or so miles later, just shy of the North Dakota border, Watt was again surprised by the magnificent views of the barren buttes and mesas of the Cave Hills rising up from the prairie, standing sentinel over a handful of oil wells amidst a few scattered ranches. As the riders began their ascent of the South Cave Hills on a skinny but well maintained dirt road, it turned into two-track, and then began to disappear. Fortunately, Forest Service markers pointed the way through the deep grass, which seemed to go on forever.

The remote Cave Hills were just part of an unforeseen variety of terrain they encountered on the inaugural 853-mile Dakota Adventure Loop. Although some had previously ridden through the Black Hills, which lay next to the motorcycle mecca of Sturgis, no one had expected such diversity in South Dakota.

On Day One, July 9, twenty-one riders had taken off from Rockerville, a small tourist spot on the main highway to Mount Rushmore. Their bikes ranged from a 500cc Beta to a Yamaha Super Tenere, but included the usual adventure class suspects: KTMs, KLRs and BMWs. The group rode 227 miles on dirt and grass trails through pine forests, a stark 86,000-acre area burned by the 2000 Jasper fire, and the red sandstone ravines of the southwestern Black Hills, which reminded many of southern Utah.

Leaving the Black Hills, they rode south on more remote roads and trails to the ghost town of Ardmore, at the Nebraska border, then back north to stay the night in the tourist town of Hot Springs.

Hot Springs is known for Evans Plunge, an indoor swimming attraction fed with warm water from the Fall River, and for the Mammoth Site, a dig filled with the bones of—you guessed it—prehistoric mammoths.

Day Two included Custer State Park’s rocky Needles formations, and past Mount Rushmore to Hill City, were they left the pavement. Off road they threading their way through the high country of the Northern Hills, climbed Cement Ridge, and descended through aspen and pine to the white sandstone cliffs of Little Spearfish and Spearfish canyons. Snacks and wine greeted them at a reception hosted by Outdoor Motor Sports, concluding the 196-mile day.

They had ridden through ferns two and three feet high, reminiscent of rain forest in northwestern coastal areas. Every half hour presented entirely different flora and fauna. In some places, the grass was waist-high. “To be able to do two-track roads that have overgrown grass—that’s back country!” Watt said. “That’s what I look for, and this route is as good as, or better, than any I’ve ridden.” He also expressed his pleasure over how open the roads were through the Black Hills National Forest, “On the entire trip, we saw only three closed gates on forest land. You don’t find that in Colorado or Utah. But, that’s the way it should be.”

On Day Three, the group continued north another 225 miles through the rolling prairie and the Cave Hills of remote Harding County, whose population is under 1,500. After a night’s stay in the tiny town of Buffalo, they rode the Slim Buttes, site of an 1876 battle between General George Crook and elements of the Lakota Sioux, who had whipped George Custer at Little Bighorn.

The final day, the riders returned south over dirt, gravel and grass, across the sparsely populated northwestern South Dakota prairie, to the Black Hills at Sturgis, where they gathered at the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum and Hall of Fame.

One of the riders, Stan Simpson, is a member of the board of the American Motorcyclist Association, and also happens to be a Hall of Fame inductee. From Sturgis, they made their way back to Rapid City and Rockerville, logging 205 miles for Day Four, and finishing the ride.

Simpson, like Watt, was equally impressed by the variety of terrain, “We never had more than 20 miles of the same thing.” The diversity of the route had many vowing to return to ride all or part of the Loop.

Hearne, former owner of Outdoor Motor Sports, and a relatively recent convert to adventure riding, said the entire Dakota Adventure Loop has public access, including some parts that cross private ranchland. He added, “The ride is not for beginners, but could be accomplished by intermediate riders. Covering the 850-plus miles in four days is a daunting task. However, it’s more grueling for some of the guys than I originally intended.”

Crashes ended the trip for two riders, one breaking a collarbone, and another twisting a leg. Hearne also wiped out on top of the Cave Hills, severely wrenching his shoulder. But, after X-rays at the Spearfish hospital showed no breaks, he rejoined the ride, albeit with some help getting back aboard his KTM990. There were some other mishaps over the four-day ride, but none serious enough to prevent any of the rest of riders from finishing.

Hearne’s goal in mapping the route and organizing the inaugural run was to offer an adventure ride that shows off the beauty of western South Dakota. Riders can take on the entire route over several days or just ride parts at their own speed.

Watt added that the Dakota Adventure Loop will be attractive for riders from the Midwest who want to enjoy the mountains without having to go all the way to the Rockies or Utah. He summed it up by adding, “This is an absolutely fantastic adventure route that gives you what Colorado has to offer without the altitude.”

Helping Hearne scout the route were long-time dirt riders Jeff Meineke, Bob King and Gary Schmidt, all of Rapid City, and Tom Willems of Custer. Hearne will continue to tweak the route by swapping more pavement for dirt, and the final course is expected to be about 950 miles when he’s finished.

He’s also adding a loop that will take riders over the top of 7,166-foot Bear Mountain in the Central Black Hills—the highest place you can ride a motorcycle between the Rockies and the Alps. And, he’s adding a section that goes past the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, which pastures hundreds of wild horses rescued from elsewhere in the West.

Along with the variety of scenery, the Dakota Adventure Loop route offers remote landscapes that are pretty much devoid of traffic. There are long sections where riders didn’t encounter anyone else—in fact, there wasn’t any evidence in the deep grass that anyone had ever traveled the route. “If you didn’t have GPS, you’d swear there wasn’t a trail underneath you,” mused Hearne.

The remote trails have their hazards. There are places where if you crash and can’t right your machine or your body, that it might be days before a rancher on a four-wheeler come along. Of course, cell phone coverage is spotty in some of these areas, too. But that’s part of the allure for adventure riders. They are likely to have, well, an adventure… or, at least a few surprises.

GPS tracks are posted, along with general difficulty levels, on the website: DakotaAdventureLoop.com. 

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