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Trailheads

Parking, self-sale trail passes, vault toilets, and tables are available at all trailheads (no toilets or tables at White Elephant). Additional services found near the trailheads are designated below. Water is available seasonally at most trailheads.

Downloads: Map | Trail Guide

Deadwood

Deadwood was named for the burned trees the miners found in this area when they came in search of gold. The town was a prosperous placer camp in 1876. It is the final resting place of Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
108.8	Near the old railroad depot on Sherman Street in Deadwood GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.371074 Long: -103.728030	3.5 miles to Kirk Trailhead

Kirk

Kirk Power Plant was built in the 1920s to help power the Homestake Gold Mine. Coal came in by rail from Wyoming and a plume of water came from Englewood.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
105.3	1/2 mile south of Lead on Hwy. 85 and 1 1/2 miles west GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.342424 Long: -103.758172	1.6 miles to Lead Trailhead

Lead

Lead, home of the Homestake Mining Company, was originally called "Washington". The Homestake Mine produced gold since 1876, operating both an open cut and an underground mine over 8,000 feet below the surface.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
103.7	The city of Lead GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.346644 Long: -103.780634	0.4 miles to Sugarloaf Trailhead

Sugarloaf

Old railroad ties are still in place under the gravel between Sugarloaf Trailhead and Deadwood. This trailhead is not on the main line, but is part of the fantail loop.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
103.3	1 mile southwest of Lead on Hwy. 85 GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.331497 Long: -103.788501	4.8 miles to Englewood Trailhead

Englewood

Englewood was established as Ten-Mile Ranch, a stagecoach stop in the late 1870s. The name was changed when Englewood became a railroad center with the construction of the Spearfish branch leading from there in 1893. A roundhouse, depot, water tower and small yard made Englewood a bustling railroad spot for many years.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
98.5	6 miles west of Hwy. 385 on Brownsville Road GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.297035 Long: -103.784300	6 miles to Dumont Trailhead

Dumont

Dumont was named for an early French settler named Charles Dumont. The town was founded in 1890 as a lumber town and a shipping point for cattle. A spur of the railroad line went northwest to Hanna.

In the winter, the Dumont Trailhead is a major snowmobile trailhead. Orange diamond-shaped metal markers on the trees mark the snowmobile trails. Snowmobiles are allowed on the trail only between Dumont and Deadwood during specified months of the year.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
92.6	Forest Service Road 17 GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.227063 Long: -103.786111	8.7 miles north of Rochford Trailhead

Rochford

In 1878, Rochford was home to 100 log cabins, three saloons, six stores, two hotels, a drugstore, a butcher shop and a barber shop. Later a post office was built along with a school house where Annie Tallent once taught. By 1881, there were only three people living in Rochford - the miners had moved to other locations to find their gold.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
82.6	Near the Rochford Fire Station GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.122247 Long: -103.713435	8 miles to Mystic Trailhead

Mystic

The town of Mystic, first named "Sitting Bull", has 2 claims to fame. The first involves gold mining along Castle Creek: An experimental plant was built in 1904 by the Electro-Chemical Reduction Company to extract gold by electro-cynide or electro-chlorination processes. The second claim to fame was the railroad: One line, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, was a north/south railroad stretched south from Deadwood. A second line, later called the Crouch Line, went from Rapid City to Mystic where it intersected with the north/south railroad.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
74.7	12 miles north of Hill City on Mystic Road GPS Coordinates Lat: 44.076611 Long: -103.639388	14.6 miles to Burlington Northern Hill City Trailhead

Burlington Northern Hill City

Hill City, the second oldest town in the Black Hills, was founded in 1876. Through the years it has been known for its mining, logging and ranching. Tourism is today's most common draw to the community.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
60.1	In Tracy City Park in Hill City GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.927400 Long: -103.573983	10.5 miles to The Mountain Trailhead

The Mountain

View the Crazy Horse Monument from this site. Korczak Ziolkowski began carving the mounted warrior in 1948. The Crazy Horse sculpture is planned to be 500 feet high by 600 feet long. Crazy Horse was the Lakota Sioux warrior who engineered the defeat of General George Custer's army.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
49.6	3 miles north of Custer on Hwy 385 GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.802882 Long: -103.635160	5 miles to Harbach Park Trailhead

Harbach Park / Custer

Custer is the oldest town in the Black Hills. It was named after Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer whose 1874 expedition discovered gold on the banks of French Creek which was near the present day downtown of Custer. Ten thousand miners flocked to this area to search for riches - the last big gold rush in the United States.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
44.5	Harbach City Park in Custer, across the street from the Chamber of Commerce GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.765129 Long: -103.597869	0.5 miles to Custer Spur Trailhead

Custer Spur to Stockade Lake

This section is paved, no horse traffic allowed

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
45	3.2 mile spur connects the trail to Stockade lake	9.7 miles to White Elephant Trailhead

White Elephant

Feldspar was once mined at the White Elephant mine on the east side of the highway. The area where the mine once operated is still visible today.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
35.7	Along Hwy. 385 GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.653867 Long: -103.590417	3.6 miles to Pringle Trailhead	None

Pringle

Mining and lumbering are the two main enterprises in the small town of Pringle (once known as "Point of Rocks"). The Buffalo Gap Lumber Company operated here in 1904. The company turned out over 600,000 feet of lumber annually.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
32.1	West side of Hwy. 385 near the Pringle Fire Station. GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.609095 Long: -103.592929	16 miles to Minnekahta Trailhead

Minnekahta

Minnekahata was originally a water stop and the junction of the Hot Springs branch of the railroad. The water in this area is so hard that water had to be brought in by tank cars, and pumped into the water tower to have it available for the steam locomotives. In the early 1890s, tourists came by train to enjoy the warm water spas of Hot Springs.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
16.2	1/2 mile east of the Jct. of Hwys. 18 and 89 GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.431725 Long: -103.688905	16 miles to Edgemont Trailhead

Edgemont

Edgemont was founded in 1889 as the railroad (Grand Island and Wyoming Central - a subsidiary of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy) base camp on the south side of the Cheyenne River. Several thousand construction workers and associated crews began built the railroad line that is now the Mickelson Trail. In the 1960s and 1970s, miners worked in the Edgemont area seeking uranium ore for nuclear development, but mining the ore was not profitable, so it was discontinued.

Mile Post	Location	Length	Facilities
0	South end of Main Street in Edgemont GPS Coordinates Lat: 43.298250 Long: -103.824724