Customer Reviews

Hiking South Dakota's Black Hills Country

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've encountered several inaccuracies in the second edition of this book. We recently hiked Lost Cabin-Harney Peak Loop and we were expecting to hike the listed distance of 8.6 miles but the actual distance is at least 12 miles and our GPS logged 14 miles. In addition, this hike's trail contact phone number for the Black Hills National Forest Supervisor's Office is incorrect as is the phone number for the Black Hills National Forest Visitor's Center in the appendix. Of the three hikes we have done we have found inaccurate information on all of them. The directions for Crow peak did not give adequate directions from the Interstate 90 exit, for Bear Butte the book lacked current fee information. Many of the hikes do not have their elevation gain listed. This book offers a nice overall listing of hikes in different areas of the Black Hills however the book's inaccuracies and lack of useful features such as an index, hike elevation profiles, and detailed maps that include all the features mentioned in the text make it, in my opinion, less useful than I would have expected.

Good hiking reference if you're new to the BH and hiking in general. I've found the ratings to be more for beginners or folks without a lot of hiking skill (ie. a moderate trail listed as strenuous). Good to get you oriented to the area.

I live in the Black Hills and use this guide extensively. Itis well written and trails are accurately described. If you purchaseone hiking book for SD....make sure it is this one!...

I go on an annual hiking trip with a group of buddies. We almost always rely on Falcon Guides for hike planning, and this year being my year to plan the logistics, I purchased the guide for the Black Hills and Badlands for our five hikes.

We found that the distances for virtually all the hikes we did were very far off (miles off, including our longest hike, the Lost Cabin/Harney Peak loop, which was listed in the guide as 8.6 miles but by the count of two different GPS readings was 12.4), and one of the hikes was rated easy when it included several fairly significant climbs. Most disappointing, however, was the fact that one description, that for the Bear Mountain loop, was wholly inadequate/inaccurate, including simply incorrectly describing the trailhead at the boy scout camp, which after 90 minutes of all 6 of us spreading out and searching we simply never found.

Very disappointing.

Beware!
I just used this book for two hikes in the Badlands and Black Hills--both were as listed in terms of terrain, views, etcetera, but the mileage listed was way off.
The Badlands loop trail we followed was clocked at 6.6 miles at the trailhead and at 4 in the book. My hiking partner and I noticed the discrepancy and were prepared, carrying enough water and planning for enough time. If someone went by the book they would be entering a hike several miles longer than expected; particularly dangerous given the heat and exposure of the area and the fact that the hike is rated easy.
The Harney Peak loop via the Lost Cabin trail is even more grossly inaccurate re: total mileage. My hiking partner and I are very fit and we set out for what we planned as a nice training hike before a week backpacking in Colorado. Several miles into the wilderness and away from our car we noticed that mileage wasn't adding up to that detailed in the book. We decided to push on, assuming it couldn't be wrong by more than 2 or 3 miles (dangerous enough). By the time we were on our way down from the peak, it had become evident that the mileage was way off and we began to find mileage discrepancies even within the detailed description (the descent is shown as 3.6 mile on the brief breakdown and then there are more than 5+ miles detailed within the written description). We had our headlamps and essentials to get us through a night in the wilderness if necessary but ended up pretty much running down the descent to beat the nightfall (we did, by about 10 minutes). We both ended up nursing our feet through our weeklong backpacking trip. . .
I will use this book again for it's pointers to nice trails and descriptions of the qualities of the hikes in terms of views, terrains, traffic, etcetera. I will count on calculating my own mileage via maps and other sources.

I am a very frequent hiker in the Black Hills and thought this book would be a good addition to my more common resources of National Forest maps and internet sites. I really enjoyed reading the descriptions of the hikes, as it has alerted me to sights to look for which has enhanced selected hikes. In general, this book was able to enrich my hikes through the extra information provided describing the vegetation and surrounding vistas. However, there are serious errors in distances for the hikes in this book. Of the many hikes that I have done that are featured in this book, the authors have often quoted the distance as anywhere from 1-5 miles less than the actual distance. I find it odd that the authors did not strive to provide a more accurate representation of distances, even by simply referring to forest service maps, which state the distances much more accurately. With some of the long hikes, it is a big problem when the book is off by 5 miles...for most hikers that means a huge difference in the estimated and actual time of completion. It would be extremely beneficial if the authors could correct the distances in subsequent editions so the readers could have faith that the book would accurately reflect the amount of distance traveled and could therefore estimate the time needed for their chosen hike.

Awesome book! South Dakota has so many great hiking places. It was nice to have the detail of how to get to trail heads.

I've been hiking and camping for over 40 years. I always research the area before any trip. I had hoped this book would help in planning. It was very weak on trail description.
I got more information from just looking through the internet.