Black Hills Help

Hello Wayalifers!

A buddy and I are heading to the Black Hills in a couple of weeks for some hiking, camping, and a little Jeepin'. I have a completely stock 4x4 Renegade with the 1.4 Turbo and manual transmission. Also, this is my first Jeep and, being from Iowa, my 4x4 experience is limited to mud and snow in slick, but relatively flat situations.

In reviewing the Nat. Geo. Trail Maps, I was hoping to get a little assistance on route selection. In the legend it has a number of types of roads, skipping the paved roads it has:

• Improved Road
• High Clearance Road
• Drivable Trail (Rock Crawling Route)

I have no concern about "Improved Road", and I don't think the "Drivable Trail (Rock Crawling Route)" would be appropriate for the vehicle or my experience level, but do you think the "High Clearance Road" would be an issue?

There is one campsite, Castle Peak, that I would like to stay at that is only accessible via a High Clearance Road. And, there are couple of trails I would like to take to make our transitions to various locations more fun.

If it make any difference we will be traveling in the area May 11th-14th.

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

Plenty of roads to drive and things to see in a stock Renegade up there. Hard to say if the "high clearance" road would be appropriate for a rig like yours, only because everyone's idea of a "high clearance" road is different.

Btw... welcome to WAL from just a little west of ya :thumb:

BananaJeep said:

Plenty of roads to drive and things to see in a stock Renegade up there. Hard to say if the "high clearance" road would be appropriate for a rig like yours, only because everyone's idea of a "high clearance" road is different.

Btw... welcome to WAL from just a little west of ya :thumb:

Click to expand...

Thanks for the welcome!

I am pretty excited about getting up there in a vehicle that has even a little ability. I have only been up there for Sturgis once (Harley's don't like off-road that much, especially when they only have 4 inches of clearance), and once with my parents many years ago. I am rather hopeful on the Castle Rock campsite as it is an official Black Hill National Forest site, and I have read some reviews where it seems like it is mainly cars that have issues (definitely no RV's). But I agree that "high clearance" can mean many things, we plan on having some back-up locations just in case. Luckily it sounds like we are going to up there before the real tourist season starts.

NFS is fairly conservative when they list as high clearance so I would be willing to wager that you will be just fine ............

Out here in AZ, a high clearance road usually means a stock jeep can handle most of the trail in 2WD.

I'm in Spearfish, so somewhat familiar with the hills. You should be fine on high clearance roads as most I've been on have been "logging" style roads. Back in the day, my stock 08 Rubicon made it through a lot of crawling trails. Have fun, it's a great place to spend some downtime!

Sent from my VS986 using WAYALIFE mobile app

blackhills said:

I'm in Spearfish, so somewhat familiar with the hills. You should be fine on high clearance roads as most I've been on have been "logging" style roads. Back in the day, my stock 08 Rubicon made it through a lot of crawling trails. Have fun, it's a great place to spend some downtime!

Sent from my VS986 using WAYALIFE mobile app

Click to expand...

Thanks for the local info. We have a pretty good long weekend planned.