George S. Mickelson Trail: Custer

The Custer segment runs sixteen miles from Harbach Park in Custer north to Tracy Park in Hill City. It climbs out of Custer through granite outcrops, aspen stands, and wet meadows to a crest near The Mountain Trailhead and the Crazy Horse Memorial, then descends alongside Highway 16/385 and Tenderfoot Creek into Hill City. Ponderosa pine gives patchy shade, but the middle miles open into meadow and grassland with granite formations looming to the east. A paved spur leaves Custer for Stockade Lake. South of Custer the trail continues as the Edgemont segment; north of Hill City it becomes the Mystic segment.

• Custer is the oldest town in the Black Hills, and Hill City, founded in 1876, is the second oldest.
• A party of 28 from Sioux City reached French Creek on December 23, 1874, and built the Gordon Stockade; the Army removed them the following April.
• The Gordon Stockade near Stockade Lake has been rebuilt three times, in 1925, 1941, and 2004.
• Korczak Ziolkowski set off the first blast on Thunderhead Mountain for the Crazy Horse Memorial on June 3, 1948.
• The face of Crazy Horse was completed and dedicated in 1998, the same year the trail was finished; the head alone is 87 feet high.
• The Hill City trailhead in Tracy Park carries the name Burlington Northern Hill City Trailhead.
• An osprey nesting platform at Hill City Lake has been used in recent years, and an American dipper is sometimes seen at the spillway below the lake.

Burlington and Missouri River crews graded the High Line from Edgemont to Deadwood in 1890 and 1891, blasting four hard rock tunnels and building more than 100 timber trestles in under a year. Gold had opened the country first. Custer's 1874 expedition reported gold on French Creek, and the next summer Jenney and Newton found it on Castle Creek. Camps such as Sitting Bull, later Mystic, and Rochford grew along the creeks the rails would follow. The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy ran the line, hauling passengers, mail, coal, livestock, and general merchandise to the mining towns and their mills. Its successor, Burlington Northern, abandoned the Custer to Deadwood portion in November 1983 and the Edgemont to Custer portion in 1986. Governor George S. Mickelson pushed to turn the corridor into a trail. The first six miles were dedicated in 1991 as South Dakota's first rail trail. Mickelson died in a plane crash in April 1993, and the trail took his name. The full 109 miles from Edgemont to Deadwood opened in 1998, managed by South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. Rails-to-Trails Conservancy inducted it into its Hall of Fame in 2010. This segment links the two oldest towns in the Black Hills, Custer and Hill City, and crosses the divide beside Thunderhead Mountain, where carving of the Crazy Horse Memorial began in 1948.

• CusterMILE 0Directions
• The Mountain TrailheadMILE 4.7Directions
• Crazy Horse MemorialMILE 6.5Directions
• Oreville Trail StopMILE 11.1Directions
• Hill CityMILE 16.1Directions

• Wikipedia · George S. Mickelson Trail
• South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · George S. Mickelson Trail: Trail Policies and Etiquette
• Mickelson Trail Affiliates · Mickelson Trail Information
• South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · A Birder's Guide to the George S. Mickelson Trail
• South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks · George S. Mickelson Trail map and trailheads
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy · A Milestone for the Mickelson Trail: Celebrating 25 Years
• MTB Project · Mickelson: Deadwood to Edgemont
• Wikipedia · Gordon Stockade
• Wikipedia · Crazy Horse Memorial
• Rails-to-Trails Conservancy (TrailLink) · George S. Mickelson Trail History
• Black Hills Visitor · George S. Mickelson Trail
• Spearfish Area Historical Society · A Black Hills gem: The Mickelson Trail