The Dakota Hogback

Back to plan A. The Mickelson Trail was a great idea, but Dee and Cal received an email this morning from the S.D. Department of Parks indicating that the majority of the trail is still snow covered, so they will be going to Rapid City after all (presumably via SD 79). I am still curious about their route from here to Belle Forche, but apparently there is only 8 miles on I-90 and the highway patrol has blessed this.

Maybe the rest of this entry should wait until Dee and Cal are actually in Rapid City, but since it is on my mind, I will go ahead post it now. When I was looking at the Terrain view on the Google map this morning, I zoomed in close on Rapid City. The interesting thing about this is that the city is cut in two by a ridge of mountains. This ridge is called the Dakota Hogback. There is a break in the hogback on the north end, through which Rapid Creek runs. The ridge takes its name from the Dakota Formation, a sandstone formation that underlies the ridge. The Dakota Hogback also goes past Hot Springs, which accounts for all the sandstone buildings.

Then zooming back out, it is also fascinating to see how the Black Hills stand apart from the Rocky Mountains like an island of mountains and trees in a sea of prairie.

George S. Mickelson Trail

As a rule, in this blog, I try to resist anticipating where the trikers will stop each day and how they will get there, but half the fun of travel is planning the trip, and half the vicarious fun for me is researching the road ahead. I had been wondering, therefore, how Dee and Cal would ride from Hot Springs, SD to Williston, ND, or rather, how they planned to get to Belle Fourche, since north of I-90, US 85 would appear the only route.

Vertical Feet

Route	385	79
min	3255	3146
max	5873	3652
ascent	3507	1411
descent	3678	1608

From Hot Springs to Spearfish, however, the quandary was this. US 385, winding around the west of Custer State Park, is steep, with grades of up to 4% in places, maybe more. The vertical climb is 3500 ft. The alternative route is SD-79, which runs along the east side of Custer Park and is relatively flat and straight. There are a few grades of 2%, but most are 1% or less. This is not readily apparent from the road map, but if you click on the Terrain button in the upper right-hand corner of the Google map, it becomes obvious. SD-79 is also the shorter route to Rapid City, but I had thought they might want to bypass the city because it appears to me that the only direct route from Rapid City to Spearfish is I-90, not so great for trikes. Nonetheless, when Dee mentioned stopping in Rapid City for supplies, I assumed they would take 79, and then I would just have to wait and see how they would get to US 85.

Last night, however, I received an email from Dee saying that they have changed their itinerary, which I take as permission to share it here. They are no longer going through Rapid City, having found a "rails to trails" bike trail called the George S. Mickelson Trail (map). It starts in Edgemont and ends in Deadwood (109 miles). They will pick it up at Minnekahta Junction just west of Hot Springs. It follows the route of an abandoned railroad branch line constructed by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1890-91 and last operated by the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1983. Therefore, even though there is still a pretty good climb, its slopes are much more gentle than US 385. It sounds marvelous. Dee says that they plan to sight see in Hot Springs all day Wednesday and leave for the bike trail Thursday, weather permitting.

Spelling and Pronunciation

The "ch" in Wichita and the "tch" in Hutchinson are pronounced like /ch/ in chair, but the "ch" in Chadron, derived from Chartran, is pronounced like the /sh/ in shower. Between Chadron and Hot Springs, SD is a little town named Oelrichs, where the "ch" is pronounced like /k/ in kid. Apparently it depends on the source of the words. Hutchinson is an English name, and Wichita is the Anglicization of the Native American tribe by that name. Chadron is French in origin, and Oelrichs, German. Those of you familiar with German know that "ch" is pronounced in different ways depending on the context in that language, too, but to my knowledge "chs" is always pronounced /ks/.

To take this a step further, recall that yesterday Dee and Cal posted a picture of a marker for the Chadron-Chicago Cowboy Race of 1893. Notice that the "ch" in Chicago is /sh/ as it is in Chadron. From this we might guess that the name "Chicago" is French in origin, and we would be right. It is the French version of the Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa (wild leek), a kind of onion plant common along the Chicago River. The name Cheyenne is also a French version of a Dakota or Sioux word, although apparently there is some question about exactly which.

If we look at the names of other towns or counties in Nebraska we find "tch" (/ch/) in Mitchell, Thatcher, Litchfield, and Hitchcock, all of English origin. Likewise, Chase, Cherry, Orchard, Champion, Manchester are English (so /ch/). Wolbach (/k/) is German, and Antioch (/k/) is Greek. It turns out that Burchard is pronounced "ber'-churd" by the locals, and I am guessing this has been Anglicized from either German (berk'-hard) or French (bur-shard'), but that is pure speculation.

On an unrelated note as the trikers leave the great state of Nebraska, my sister lives in Rulo, which is about as far from Chadron as a town can be and still be in the same state.

P.S. Enjoy the Plunge!

Crazy Horse, Part I

If there is one thing I enjoy more than hiking for relaxation it is reading, so when Dean Simmons recommended author Mari Sandoz to Dee and Cal, I rushed right over to my local B&N to pick up a copy of Crazy Horse. I am about a fourth of the way into it and enjoying it thoroughly. Not only does Sandoz tell the story from the perspective of the Native American, her distinct style of writing draws the reader into that point of view.

This is not intended to be a review of the book, but I would make a couple of personal observations. First, I am struck by the notion of contingency, in the fact that the whole sequence of events with far reaching consequences was set in motion by an unpredictable and seemingly minor occurrence, the emaciated cow of a Mormon emigrant straying off the "Holy Road" (the Oregon/Mormon Trail) on the Platte River. The lives of thousands of individuals were altered inextricably by the whim of this otherwise insignificant beast.

Second, when I was much younger, the history of the settling of the West seemed like the distant past to me. But now that I am sixty, I realize that General Custer was born less than three of my life-times ago, just two life-times before I was born, one life-time before my grandmother, and Crazy Horse was younger than Custer. Not so long ago.

The French Fur Trade

One of the things now on my list of things to research is the French fur trade in the High Plains during the 19th century. This first came up in my reading about Fort Kearney. Then today I started reading Crazy Horse (which I will write about later), and a prominent character in the second chapter is a fur trader by the name of Jim Bordeaux. And now Dee and Cal have stopped in Chadron, named after the manager of the fur trading post in that area, a Frenchman by the name of Louis B. Chartran.

The ride from Alliance to Chadron must have been miserably cold and wet, but it would seem that the last 14 miles so so might have been "all down hill," as they say. Here is the elevation map from MapMyRide.

Case in Point

It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or even a meteorologist) to see what I meant yesterday about temperature extremes on the High Plains. It was just Wednesday that the Trikers were happy for a patch of shade in 82 F, and now less than three days later they are waiting out a broad band of snow and ice with ground temperatures right at freezing. The wind chill might be even lower, although the wind at present is just 3 mph. The high today is predicted to be 47 F.

Dee, if you are stuck in Alliance another day, I am guessing your mobility will be limited (like not moving your trikes from the room), but it would be interesting to see what Carhenge looks like in the snow. Still I hope you can find enough of a break in the weather to get north of this band.

The High Plains

Elevation mapping tools are improving, but I am still not entirely sure of their accuracy. The image above was prepared using MapMyRide, and a map created by Gmaps-Pedometer is similar but slightly different. For example, the latter does not show the "valley" at mile 163 (around Hyannis) shown on the former. (You can click on the image above to see an enlarged version.) Nevertheless, what is quite clear from both maps is the relentless but gradual climb from Hazard to Alliance, almost 2000 feet over 230 miles. At an elevation of 3967 ft Alliance, NE is nearly the highest point on this trip so far, though there will be some higher mountain passes further north.

The high elevation but lack of mountains is a perfect setup for the high winds that Dee and Cal have been fighting. The High Plains has the highest potential for providing wind generated electricity of any part of the country except for off-shore areas. Combine this with the semi-arid climate, and you get wide extremes in temperature as well.