My most amazing run ever! In the backcountry of the Black Hills…

I don’t have any pictures of this event because I ran alone in the back country and I did not carry the camera. Marilyn dropped me off at a trail head to Centennial Trail. The plan was for me to run along the trail in a northerly direction, always keeping to the left fork so that I would intercept Sanctuary Trail which would take me back out to the trail head on highway 87. Marilyn would then meet me at the Sanctuary trail head. The plan was to allow me one and a half to two hours before she called out the National Guard for a search and rescue. The area where I ran is called the Wind Cave National Park. The total run was to be about 10 to 12 km. It turned out to be about 20 km.

We made many mistakes planning that run, which made it unnecessarily interesting for us both to put it mildly. You will probably spot the mistakes as I tell this story. Having said that, I did survive it unscathed and feeling more alive and happy than I have for a long time. At least the weather co-operated. It was windy with those big scattered cumulus clouds that mark a perfect summer day.

I took off from the trail head, winding downhill from the highway into a long deep canyon. Signs of buffalo were everywhere and the wildflowers were just amazing. Every few hundred yards there was a metal stake with a small 3 inch square number attached to it that indicated the trail number. Centennial Trail was number six. All I had to do was to follow the number six signs, keeping to the left until I came across an intersection where I would take a left fork to move onto trail number five. I think it was number five if I remember correctly. I had a small brochure with a “map” of the trails that I took along as an afterthought. I wasn’t going to bring one because I thought “how hard can it be, all I have to do is follow the signs and the theoretically well-worn trail!” Don’t get me wrong, I am not inexperienced going back country into the wilderness. I have spent a lot of time bushwhacking as a Geological Assistant in British Columbia, and a whole summer in the Canadian Shield above the tree line working for the Canadian Geological Survey. I’ve been dropped onto mountain tops by helicopter and had to bushwhack a straight line down to base no matter what was in the way. But I guess everyone makes mistakes no matter how experienced they are.

So I happily ran along the canyon bottom, crisscrossing streams and following the signs which were becoming more and more infrequent. Or were they? Once I saw one of the signs by accident lying horizontal in the tall grass, otherwise invisible from any distance. I remember thinking it had probably been knocked down by a buffalo. I made a few false turns but I always managed to come back to the main trail. The problem was that there were a LOT of well-worn trails, all of them game trails. Finding the signs became essential.

Nevertheless things were proceeding rather well. I began climbing out of the canyon and suddenly the next sign I saw read “7″. What the heck had happened to number “6″? I looked at my poor excuse for a map and began wondering if I should turn back. As fate would have it I saw in the distance what I thought was a park ranger coming down the trail. So I resumed running towards the man. He saw me and I got the impression that he was not sure what to make of me. If you have ever watched the Monty Python film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” I refer you to the scene where Sir Lancelot has just received a message from the castle in the form of a note attached to an arrow buried in the chest of his servant. He reads the note and begins charging towards the castle gates. The two guards on duty see this and they squint trying to see what’s happening. Sir Lancelot remains a tiny figure charging madly toward the castle, just a speck on the horizon. Suddenly, without warning, he is there right in front of the guards and slays them both. Anyway, this was going through my mind as I ran toward the man and before we knew it we were face to face. He began to speed up and try to go around me, at one point actually ducking when I stopped beside him and started asking for directions. He looked as if he were afraid I would start mugging him or something which puzzled me to no end since I had nothing except a water bottle and he had a pack and a rather large walking stick. After a couple of awkward hellos, I saw he was not at all communicative nor friendly so I got right to the point saying I was lost and I asked him where he came from. I thought he would say he came from a certain trail head and he would point the way and tell me how far, but he mumbled something like “Norbeck” and said there would be a hill just ahead of me. He showed me his map which was no better than mine. And so he went on his way. I was really puzzled because Norbeck was nowhere near that I knew about. If he meant Norbeck South Dakota, well that was hundreds of miles away across the state. If he meant the Norbeck trail or the Norbeck Wilderness area , that also was far to the north on the other side of Custer State Park which was just north of where I was in the Wind Cave National Forest. I pondered this for a while as I watched him go and decided he misunderstood or was too frightened of me to be helpful. There was no way he had walked from Norbeck that day, so I decided he was probably telling me he was camping there or whatever.

I decided that maybe if I continued to follow trail number 7, I would eventually intersect highway 5 where I could hitch a lift back to highway 87 and the Sanctuary trail head. It was either that or go back the way I came and have to deal with that guy again, and besides I would still have to hitch a ride to the Sanctuary trail head anyway since that is where Marilyn would be waiting. Also, Marilyn’s plan was to follow the Sanctuary trail herself and so meet up with me on the trail on my way out. The only way we would meet properly was if I either followed the original plan, or hitched a ride to the trail and followed it until I met her.

As, I said before, he trails were marked by (a): a trail, and (b): vertical posts with the trail number on it. The plan was for me to stay always to the left hand trail which according to the stupid facsimile map given out by the Park Service was trail number 6 and trail number 5. But now I was somehow on trail number seven which as close as I could figure was the Highland Creek Trail. So my new plan was to follow the Highland Creek Trail until I got to another intersection where it met up with Centennial Trail again which led on to Sanctuary Trail. It was a nice thought that didn’t last long.

I ran on, following the number 7’s until I came upon the “hill” the man must have been referring to. It was a bit of an understatement. This “hill” was a long switchback trail that climbed right out of the canyon to the peaks above and it was relentless and it was very long and steep. After a while the trail petered out below the crest of a rounded ridge. The trail simply disappeared, stopping at a large uprooted and very dead tree. I looked around for a while and saw no markers, and no indication of which way to go. On a hunch I decided to turn left and I went for about 100 yards, looking for the next marker. I stopped at the sight of a very large Elk in velvet who was watching me through the dark pines. I stood still, watching him for a few moments, then I decided that rather than push him I would go back to the tree and see if another direction might offer me better luck. I decided to look carefully around the tree up slope and I was lucky to find a marker that had fallen over and was hidden by the tall spring grass. Confident I found the trail again, I crested the hill and looked down upon a huge grassy valley surrounded by pine and rock covered hills just like the one I was standing on. The grass was knee high and perfect. The wind was whipping the grass into waves just like the ocean whips the sea into waves. There was no sign of any markers or any trail. I took careful note of where I was and I decided to search the valley for another marker. I crisscrossed that valley I lost count of the number of times, going up the other hills and back down again. A marker had to be somewhere! I scared up some pronghorn antelopes and a lot of deer but no markers. After surveying the tiniest differences in the lay of the grass I thought I discerned a bit of a bend to the grass on a distant hill like one might expect to see if an old trail was there. I followed it for a while, and just as I was about to give it up, I saw a post fallen over but with no number on it. At this point I was already late and I knew that Marilyn would be wondering what happened to me. I had no way to contact her or anybody for that matter. I knew that no matter what happened, all I had to do was continue in a northerly direction and I would eventually come across a highway, or any direction for that matter as long as I didn’t go in circles. I would come across a highway before dark. But walking in a straight line is quite easy to do even without a map or a compass. That wasn’t the worry. What really worried me was thinking about how frantic Marilyn would be if I was too very late.

Finally I came across another valley where there was a major sign post with the names of the trails on them and arrows pointing towards the various trails. That’s where I became really confused as to where I actually was. I was nowhere near where I thought I should be. I saw that my planned destination (to the number 7 trail head) was 3.3 miles to the north, but my original destination to Sanctuary Trail was 3.5 miles to the west. Although I could see no trail markers, nor indeed any trail at all, I decided to head west because according to my “map” I should come across Sanctuary Trail (number 5) and that would be where I could meet Marilyn. So I crested the hill to the west, high above the major signpost and I spotted the fire tower, now unused. I guessed it was perhaps between 3 and 5 miles away just off highway 87. I decided that even if I found no trail, as long as I kept that fire tower in view I would make the highway eventually.

The problem was that there were game trails everywhere and no markers. How would I recognize Sanctuary Trail when I came across it? I knew that if I found the trail all I had to do was turn north onto it and all would be fine. I had no choice but to move on. I lined up a feature on the horizon from where I was on top of a hill and I noted which features were in a straight line to it. That way when I was down in the valley and I lost sight of that landmark, I could still find it by choosing mini landmarks on the way until I crested the next hill. That worked nice but with a few complications. This is where the wild and dangerous buffalo had other ideas as to where I should be running.

I went in this fashion for a while until finally I came on another huge valley with a major sign post in the middle of it, right where a huge herd of buffalo were grazing and lounging about with their calves. By now my time was at about 2 hours and there was no end in sight since the buffalo were blocking my way and I HAD to get down there and read that signpost. I waited for a while and some of the bison moved away a little bit but there was this huge bull who was still well within a stone’s throw of the sign post. I began walking down toward it slowly, sort of not looking directly at them and kind of half slouched over in my best impression of a harmless thing who was just passing through. The bison began taking an interest in this and the big bull stood up and began watching me intently. I finally made it to the sign post and was delighted to find that this valley was the trail I needed. It was well marked with a long line of buffalo all the way down the valley (ha ha, marked by buffalo, get it?) and I could even see some markers. The big bull began acting nervously and I decided to crouch down behind the sign post and try to stay as small and quiet as possible. Bad move. All this time the bull was watching me and as I sat there crouched down trying to ease their fears, I was thinking that the only way I could make it down that trail was to climb the huge hills overlooking the trail and try to follow the markers from a distance. That way, the bison would be on the valley floor and I would be out of harms way on the ridge crests.

A bison raises his tail for two reasons. One is to drop some buffalo patties. The other is when they are getting upset. This bull was arcing his tail and nothing was coming out so I began to be concerned about my situation. He was up and pretending to graze yet his tail was arched. He moved a few feet away and from time to time he would look back at me. The he stopped grazing altogether and began arching his tail even more and pawing the ground. He began snorting too. Then he took five or six steps towards me and began grazing again, only to repeat the arching and the pawing and the snorting. When a buffalo charges, his tail gets to be straight up and he paws the ground and snorts just before a charge. It must have been a funny sight to see a 185 pound man crouching behind a 6 inch square post with only about a hundred feet between him and an increasingly agitated bull bison.

I knew I was in deep trouble. If he charged I had absolutely nothing to hide behind. After the latest snorting and pawing of the ground I decided enough was enough, I had to do something or he would surely charge. So I quickly stood up straight, turned around, and began walking as quickly as I could straight up the opposite hill. I glanced back occasionally and was relieved to find that the bull had lost interest and the bull began moving off to re-join his herd, which was another hundred feet away. As I was going up that hill, I noticed that I had actually been surrounded by buffalo as they were all around that post and all up and down that valley. I also notice some pronghorn antelope were mingled with the bison herd.

I got to the hill top and the relative safety of the pine trees and the rocks which at least I could dodge behind if charged by whatever. I began walking along the hill tops trying to avoid the bison and keep the markers on the valley floor in view. Several times I scared up more pronghorns, elk, and deer and I remember thinking, “Holy crap, it’s a frikken zoo out here!” Every corner I turned seemed to be occupied with some sort of wildlife.

After a while I saw the sign posts disappear and I had to cross that valley again to continue following them from the other side. Again I was delayed as I tried to figure out a strategy for crossing that valley to the other side while avoiding the buffalo who were stung out along the valley floor. After waiting a while I saw my opportunity. There was a gap in the herd just wide enough for me to run across that valley before it was closed by other buffalo that were heading in that direction. So I ran like the wind until I gained the other side safely.

I managed to finally intersect the paved highway and saw Marilyn walking up the highway. I whistled and she saw me and joined up with me and we walked back to the car. It turned out that I was gone almost 3 hours and the so-called Sanctuary Trail head was not quite that well marked on the highway. Marilyn also had been turned back by bison, and after I was late she began cruising up and down the highway. She was seriously contemplating seeking help when I finally got her attention.

So that’s my story. The bison incident made my heart pound. It was very exciting. It was exhilarating. The back country wilderness run was by far the most wonderful experience I have ever had running wild trails. I am hooked for life. But next time I will be better prepared.