Exploring the Iron Creek Trail – Northern Hills
There are two trails with the name Iron Creek in the Black Hills, which can cause some confusion. One in the Northern Hills and one in the Southern Hills. We tackled the Northern Hills Iron Creek Trail today.
To get there, start in Spearfish and head up Spearfish Canyon (14A) for just over 11 miles. You will see a parking area on your right. This is the start of the trail. This trail is popular with mountain bikers so may be quite busy depending on the day. We did this trail mid-day during the week and ran into a few people but no bikes.
You will start the trail on a single track and follow it along the creek. There are spots where the trail gets a little wider almost like two lanes due to the bike traffic. The trail is easy to follow and is actually a nice trail year round, even when it snows!
I was happy to see the creek had water in it since we’ve had such a dry year. But, it didn’t last for the entire length of the trail. It dried up about a mile in, which I found strange. How can there be water towards the bottom, but not at the top? According to a nice gentleman I met on the trail, when it’s dry, the water goes underground for part of the creek so there will be a dry section.
Even though it wasn’t overly hot today (75F), it did feel quite warm on parts of the trail. The high canyon walls create a bit of an oven effect and traps the heat without allowing much of a breeze. The water was cold and a refreshing place to cool off along the way.
At about a mile and half in, you will come to a fence followed by some rocks and a road. This is the end of the trail. If you want to add more mileage, you can continue on the trail, but we opted to turn around and head back down to play in the water a bit before we were done.
