Spearfish Community Caves

Spearfish, SD 57783

"You have to try a little bit if you want to find the trail since it's unmarked but it's not hard if you have eyeballs that work and a brain that understands direction. Not that difficult of a hike either if you've ever climbed a staircase it's like the same idea, it goes up. Cause it's on a hill. Great view. Bigger than I expected. Stop pissing in the caves please."

"Steep but fun trail in Spearfish Canyon. Park in pull off right after mile marker 3. Cross the road to begin. Find a place to cross stream, then hike right up the stream bed. This year its was a slow stream, but depends on the time of the year you go. Very helpful to have walking stick as there is lots of loose rock."

"I’ve came here and hiked a few times it’s definitely worth hiking it’s not super far but it’s pretty steep climb and I can get hard with the ice because a small stream comes down we’re you go up its easy to stay on the trail I went on the top of the cliff above but there is not a trail that goes there"

"Was a fun and adventurous hike up to the caves. LOTS of loose rocks the last half of the climb. Took our time navigating the canyon up. Took us about an hour. Wife did great climbing even though she has a total knee replacement and finally getting over Covid. Once you get up there take the little trail to the right to go out to the point and you can see in both directions up and down Spearfish canyon. Down seemed scary with all the loose rocks but only took 40 minutes to get down. Trail is not marked like everyone else says. Once you find a place to cross creek it’s not too hard to find. Hope you run into someone else and they can point you the right way. We got lucky with that. Very cool place to see. Take some water with. We took a water filter bottle and just drank from the waterfall. Very steep climb up and down. It was worth it. 5 stars if trail was marked but that was half the fun."

"TRAIL IS NOT MARKED. When you park at the pull off, cross the street and walk left quite a ways to find a place to cross the stream. Then finding a way to the left and up the cliff is challenging. Thr path is not cleared so you will have to navigate brush and loose rock. A local pointed out to us the way after we struggled for a while and hit several dead ends. It is a "short" trail but extremely challenging. I grew up hiking and consider myself moderately experienced for someone who doesn’t backpack hike and it was the toughest trail I've done in terms of navigation and "off-roading" on foot. We had our 2 dogs with us and we had to unleash them so we could all struggle along our own climb and descent. There is a waterfall and caves at the top, I promise! Would be a wonderful trail if it was actually cleared and marked with signs!"