Badlands Ural: Sheep Mountain

 

Immediately after turning off the highway onto Sheep Mountain Road, I came nose to nose with the Ural's most sinister nemesis.  It doesn't look so bad in the photo (it never does), but these washboards were some of the worst I've ever encountered!

The combination of stiff, short-travel suspension and the fact that none of the Ural's three wheels are lined up side to side make for an extremely rough ride on washboarded gravel.  That's right, the sidecar wheel is off-set a little forward of the bike's rear wheel.  I don't know why.  So each tire is bumping over a hump at different times.  Any speed over about 5 mph and I can barely hold on to the bars!

The scenery was incredible though.  So assuming a snail's pace was hardly a waste of time.

The overlook was only four or five miles up, so I'd get there - eventually.  I guessed that once I got off the valley floor, the surface would get better...

And it did.  Significantly better, in fact.

And then it got worse again.  But at least here I could thread my way between the worst lines and maintain a sufficient climbing pace.  The road wound to the top of the plateau through this steep-walled canyon.  Very Indiana Jones like!

There's a large parking area at the high point and views of the surrounding badlands in every direction.  Oh and yes, there is a sidecar motorcycle in one of the Indiana Jones movies.

But it's not as cool as mine!

It's always fascinating to me when I come across a vista this encompassing and can't see another living soul anywhere.  I suppose there's probably someone on the farthest darkened ridges, but you get the idea.  In that moment, this was all a gift for my eyes only!  It will never be exactly the same for anyone else - ever.  Yet, at the same time (to the casual observer anyway), the big picture likely hasn't changed for hundreds of years.

I chewed on that for a bit.  And you know I was serious, because I even took off my helmet for the occasion.  And cause Mom appreciates a selfie now and then.

I walked along the edge of the escarpment (but not too close) to get a better look at the road ahead.  According to my map, it continued for a couple more miles.  But it was in pretty rough shape.  Deciding to head back down and leave time to explore other regions of the park, I took one last photo - and returned to the bike.

On this flat part, before it drops into the canyon, visitors had effectively widened the road into the grass to get around the washboards.  I followed suit, as it was much easier on my back.  Would be better for the road and the grasslands if the Park Service would do some maintenance.

Here's that same canyon from the top looking down.  It's like a whole 'nother road!

I made it back to the highway and took 44 another ten miles east to the Canata Basin Road.  It begins outside the park (to the south), but according to the sign, I would cross the boundary in seven miles.  I'd noted Canata's north end junction on previous visits to The Badlands by car, but had never explored it.  So far, so good - no washboards!

That was a straight, but relatively high-speed seven-mile gravel stretch.  Ural and I both thoroughly enjoyed it.  The blacktop began as I entered this more heavily visited area of the park.  But don't worry, I'll find another unpaved road for my exit!

Badlands Ural: Getting There

 

Near the end of October, I figured I'd better introduce the Ural to Badlands National Park - before the snow flew.  Highway 44 and I-90 go pretty much straight there from our home in Rapid City, but where's the fun in that?  Lower Spring Creek road also heads that way (according to my map), and it's predominately gravel - and might have cool bridges!

  Sure enough, after a few miles, the pavement abruptly ended and the adventure began!

It wasn't long before I found a worthy photo stop.  As my regular readers know, it doesn't take all that much.

This lone structure deserves a zoomed-in shot.  Notice two of the panes in the little arched window above the main door are broken.  Wonder what happened there.  Baseball?  BB gun?  Probably just hail, but you never know.  Could be an interesting story.  I'm sure there are a lot of interesting stories out here on the Dakota plains.

And perhaps this will end up being one of them.  Sure couldn't ask for a better morning to head out!

I don't think I'd ever ridden through a remote unpaved region that was so well signed.  I had a good detailed map too, so keeping track of my progress was not a problem.

And what do you know?  Things were getting "interesting" already!  "HorSES on RoaD DAnger," the sign rather creepily read.  If the background were black and the letters were dripping red, I'd have been even more concerned.

But all I could see for miles were grass-covered hills, fence posts, and gravel.  And it was a nice three-wheeler road too!  Fairly smooth, but just loose enough to keep me on my toes.

I didn't have to wait long for the first pleasantly rustic bridge.  If my brother and I (and sister too, for that matter) had grown up here, we'd have had to put a rope swing or two in at least one of those trees!

Having that tree growing out of the bike's wind screen was not the best photo-framing job, but I had to include this shot for the sake of that perfect Ural shadow!

In around 30 miles, I was back on the blacktop at Highway 44.  Here I turned right (southeast) to head for the town of Scenic, South Dakota - maybe ten miles farther.

There isn't much left of it.  Though it's not all quite this abandoned.

The metal siding on this old store front is quite unique in my experience.  The lower sign over the door reads, "SECOND TIME AROUND."  Sure would have been impressive to see it the first time, I'll bet.

I probably could have spent a while here, just poking around, but the primary attraction that day was less than a handful of miles away.

Sheep Mountain Road is an unpaved dead-end spur off of 27.  It accesses a less visited section of Badlands National Park, lying to the southwest of the more popular tourist areas.  It's been on my list since coming through here on my Kawasaki over a dozen years ago.  It was time.