{"id":1071,"date":"2018-08-21T19:28:49","date_gmt":"2018-08-21T19:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idoitoutdoors.com\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2018-10-27T02:45:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T02:45:19","slug":"on-to-deadwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idoitoutdoors.com\/?p=1071","title":{"rendered":"On to Deadwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day 4:<\/h2>\n

August 6, 2018<\/h3>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Another night with Dennis at his Keystone motel and it was time to finish up this out and back ride. Dennis trailered me back to Hill City and the trail once again saving me ten extra miles of uphill highway bicycling. I was looking forward to what I thought was to be a mostly downhill ride. Unfortunately, I was not looking at my map or I would have known otherwise. When you are riding your memory can play tricks on you. You remember in detail your uphill struggles and tend to forget those long gradual downhill false flats. However, much like the previous day, this section had a deceptive long and gradual uphill section not cataloged in my brain. Starting at Mystic and continuing for just about nineteen miles is a gain of over two thousand feet of elevation. Fortunately, much of this is through the most scenic portion of the trail with rocky gorges, mountain streams and scenic vistas to make it seem effortless. For a time I stopped and watched a couple of trout fishermen try their luck for something other than gold in a cold, clear mountain stream and shared beaver stories with a couple of amateur natrualists I met along the trail. Further down the trail I passed signs both old and new that gold fever once and still occasionally infects the local economy.<\/p>\n