Black Hills, South Dakota

June 14-18, 2012

See trip story by Rod Pepper at bottom of page

These photos contributed by Mike Jacob

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These photos contributed by Brian and Kristy Kubal

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These photos contributed by Rod Pepper

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These phone images were contributed by Gwynn Pepper

The Marshall Tucker Band concert on Main st. in Deadwood

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South Dakota!

What a great time! Everyone arrived at the Steel Wheel Campground in the beautiful Black Hills by late afternoon on Thursday the 14th. RC4W members on this trip, besides Gwynn and myself, were Dewey and guest Kievie, the Kubals, Brian, Kristy and Dakota, the Goldings, Lenny, Jane and Jordan, the Browns, Eric and BJ, the Jacobs, Mike and Krissy and Andy Heyd. Andy’s friends, Nick and Katy from Longmont, also joined us. They were in their diesel-powered, Toyota-axled Samurai on IROKs.     On Thursday night we all gathered at the on-site Pub and Grub restaurant. Great food and cold beer, all at reasonable prices. After that it was a pretty laid back, party atmosphere in camp. Prez Mike drew a crowd around his Jeep as he changed the transfer case. Not because there was anything wrong with it, he just thought it would be cool to change a T-case in a campground. No………not really! He swapped in a lower-geared one. Meanwhile, a campfire had been started and the suds were flowing! The first of 4 great campfire nights had commenced.     Friday morning brought the first trail day. Dewey had picked the Flat Nasty Trail in the southern Hills for a little warm-up run. The weather was awesome. A 30 mile cruise on Hwy 385 through the Black Hills in an open, fat-tired Jeep is the stuff dreams are made of! Awesome! You had to have been there. I could have called it good right there! But……. we were there to rock surf. Flat Nasty is a nice little surfin’ trail with a couple decent obstacles thrown in to make it interesting. Enough so, that Eric and Andy both broke on the same one! Eric broke a hub and Andy broke a rear axle on a pretty good little climb. Both were trail-fixed with spare parts and we were on our way again. The ride back to camp was exhilarating. On Hwy 44 we ran into a short stretch of rain. Not enough to get soaking wet but enough to get “refreshingly wet” after a hot, dusty trail. It felt great, we laughed all the way through it, like kids running through a sprinkler!     Friday night brought a carbon copy of Thursday night. Dewey fired up the grills and served burgers, dogs and all the fixin’s to a trail hungry crew. After that we all sat around the campfire under a billion stars and had a great time. This club is made up of a great bunch of people!     For Saturday’s trail run we stepped it up a bit and ran Hal Johns. We didn’t duck any sections, we ran it all! This was their signature trail for years before Captain Crunch came along and really raised the bar. It’s still a good one with an almost steady stream of good obstacles to play on. We made a clean run through it with no issues, which doesn’t happen very often on that trail. Once out of the trail we had a short ride back to camp where the fun was about to begin!     Unbeknownst to us ahead of time, our trip had coincided with Wild Bill Hickok Days in Deadwood. They blocked off Main Street and set up a concert stage at one end of it. On Friday night, “The Boss”, Bruce Springsteen rocked the house and on Saturday night it was those legendary southern rockers, The Marshall Tucker Band, who whipped the huge crowd into a frenzy! And, it was all free! After getting cleaned up and having dinner, we all jumped into a few vehicles and headed into Deadwood to partake in the festivities. Hey, it’s Deadwood, The Marshall Tucker Band, $3 beers and several thousand of your “closest, rowdy friends”, after a great day of wheelin’ Hal Johns! That’s good stuff right there, man!     We “shut ‘er down” in Deadwood but the party didn’t stop there. Once back at camp, we got a fire going and the party continued into the wee hours and we really had a good time!     Sunday morning brought trail day #3 and a run through the Fruity Pebbles trail. We had to leave on Sunday so we didn’t get to run. Maybe someone who was on the Sunday run can pick it up from here and let us know what happened the rest of the weekend. This one was a great time. Many thanks to Dewey for organizing it! Rock On!        Rod