Black Hills National Forest: Deerfield Trail

The past two days, Noelle and I have been backpacking in the Black Hills National Forest. On Monday we headed up to Silver City where we dropped off Noelle's car. Then we hopped into my car and headed west by way of south through Hill City to Kinney Canyon where we embarked on our 2 day, 15 mile journey along the Deerfield Trail.

We started our hike at around noon and headed into the prairie, stopping often to open and close livestock gates.

Soon we were into the woods following logging roads through recently logged areas. Eventually the trail started to get more interesting.

We headed up in elevation and soon stumbled upon an old mine.

 Shortly after our mine discovery, we set up camp for the night on a small plateau surrounded by a meandering creek.

Today we awoke to chilly temperatures and clear blue skies. When we got to hiking we saw many birds of prey along the trail. Then we started to see many man-made features along the trail. The first of these was what we originally thought was a mine. however, upon closer inspection it turned out to be a tunnel with some bunks set up inside.after this initial discovery we moved further down the trail to discover the remains of several buildings, piles of mine tailings, and the remains of an old log flume.

It was particularly interesting to see the remains of the old Flanigan Cabin. Some of the relics we found made me wonder what they were all used for.