Spearfish Canyon

Our next stop was Spearfish Canyon, still in the Black Hills in South Dakota.



I loved Spearfish Canyon. One of the things I liked best was that, although we still had rugged stone formations to look at, I couldn't fall off; I was already at the bottom!

We started from the north at the town of Spearfish and drove south through the canyon. The walls get higher as you go. We stayed at the Spearfish Canyon Lodge.




It was a nice place in a lovely, remote location in the canyon. We don't usually stay in places like that (the whole place is called Spearfish Canyon Resort), but I found it highly rated on TripAdvisor, the photos on their website were beautiful, and it was competitively priced with the chain hotels in Spearfish.

There were hiking trails right next to the lodge and restaurant, so we explored one that evening when we arrived and another the next morning.



There are three waterfalls nearby. There's also the site for the winter camp in Dances with Wolves.

This is Spearfish Falls:



The woods are full of the scent of pine trees. The trails cross Spearfish Creek, which is very pretty with all its little rapids. Despite the huge numbers of tourists around South Dakota that week, it was quiet there.



This is Roughlock Falls:


There were paved trails and various viewing decks around those.




While we were looking for Roughlock Falls, we went the wrong way and ended up at a pretty fishing hole. We'd like to someday go back and fish for trout like the several trout fishermen were doing there.



I think that we found a gem hidden in the Black Hills. Spearfish Canyon is really lovely.