Rapid City Blog: Spearfish Canyon
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app.
Spearfish Canyon, just an hour away from Rapid City, is synonymous with natural beauty. It’s a deep and lovely gorge, thick with pine and dotted with hiking trails. Black Hills National Forest is just adjacent to the canyon. The canyon itself is home to multiple waterfalls that we visited on our sun-drenched afternoon there. The mists of a handful of waterfalls that run fast in the canyon cooled our faces, and we watched the crystal clear water of Spearfish Creek speed by.
The legacy of mining in Spearfish Canyon still stands—miner’s shacks and abandoned mines are everywhere in the canyon. We found that the canyon’s northern forests reminded us of our home in the Rockies while still retaining the open loveliness of the Great Plains. We wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the area in such an in depth way without our guide and new friend, Carrie, from the Black Hills Adventure Tours. Highway 14 A that snakes through the canyon is about as picturesque and road-trip friendly as it gets. The history of the Old West permeates this part of the world, and we’re not objecting when it’s in a setting as beautiful as Spearfish Canyon.
