#Spearfish Canyon

[sleepycicada]

♜

[jmadog]

Buffalo Jeff

So it’s been a while. Every year around July, I start thinking of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and my sub-conscious always starts packing my motorcycle for the trip. It’s a reflexive thing and whether the trip happens or not, doesn’t seem to matter. I used to be very consistent in going each year and the last few years just haven’t happened. What changed? Nothing, except I refused to make excuses…

[lowered63]

Good time spearfish canyon South Dakota

[kalscattergood]

Bob took us to the Spearfish Falls in 2022.

In 2024 we took him back.

Trying to distract myself and Him(bo) this morning. One of our Sturgis crew was the victim of a hit and run last night. Dude got off his motorcycle to clear debris out of an intersection and someone killed him. He was the best of us.

Fuck you, Bob. (affectionate)

[amberenigma]

After a solid few hours or so of probably arduous labor, clothes soaked, a grin on his face, and a fish easily nearing the size of his sword hooked on his line and carried back over his shoulder. A battle was certainly won that day. "Here! I brought lunch!" Because one of them has to make sure someone isn't too lost in other business to potentially skip meals Who is the certain someone? Now that's a fun question.

And to think quiet days even so much existed these days—but the running waters that split the Chocobo Forest in two halves was serene, that cascading waterfalls providing plenty of rocks to bask upon after centuries of slowly eroding gentle curves into the stone. Ovan was content, so long as he ignored the occasional waft of stench that came from the myriad of beetle-like beast tribes in the vicinity. Although Ravana was a rather enjoyable clash of steel wills, their time here was coming to an end before continuing the journey through gale-swept canyons that belonged to the dragonkin of the west.

A break was much-needed, and the oceanborne was unfortunately a slace to his innate instincts to sit somewhere directly under the sunlight after years of staring at rays distorted by yalms of water in between. Warmth was appreciated where he could get it. At least in the meantime, he could gloss over his tomes and retrace some of the worn arcane geometries that had seen better days.

Of course, it would eventually come to a close when he hears the excitable Au Ra hoist up his catch, and to his surprise, it's about as long as his blade of choice. "I suppose if we shared for the rest of the homestead, it'd just be lunch, I see." Still, there's an earnest smile of surprise—Ovan was a botanist at heart, and particularly only delved into spearfishing as part of his youthful errands to make some gil here and there back in Kugane, but... how Gale managed to find record prize catches so consistently was somewhat terrifying to consider. Maybe some secrets were best left buried. With a huff, Ovan gets up from his basking spot and tucks away his grimoire, eventually noting the way Gale looks like he had actually fought his catch before actually hooking it on the line. "Well, I suppose we should go filet it while it's fresh and find you somewhere to dry off your clothes." Hopefully it's not alive, or a table is going to be broken. "Is this one the newest record, you think?"

[holidayvisa]

9 February 2024

9 February 2024 - Elise picked me up at 8 am and we drove to goat Island. On the way, we stopped at Elise's favorite bakery in Matakana for quiches, sandwiches, salads, croissants and pain au Chocolat. We drove the rest of the way to goat island. At goat island, there were quite a few cars at the carpark, and a lot of people with wetsuits and snorkeling gear, so I expected things to be crowded. Elise showed me how to put on the wetsuit (it's more complicated than I thought)

Swam for over 4 hours. Got in at 10 am, got out at 2:10pm. And we were swimming the WHOLE time. We had intentions of taking a break to eat some lunch, but we just non-stop swam, dove, and snorkeled for the entirety of the 4+ hours. Elise gave me some instruction on how to free-dive and how to breathe before a free-dive - you're supposed to do tidal breathing, which is just several sequences of inhalation and exhalation to relax, then one deep breath all the way out, pushing all the air our and clenching your diaphram, then one huge breath all the way in, breathing into your belly, then diving down. She gave me some tips for how to equalize my ears while holding my breath; the most helpful tip was to take the snorkel out of my mouth when trying to equalize. We saw a bunch of snappers and a couple crayfish. Elise said when she's spearfishing, she NEVER sees that many snappers (usually they're running away from her since she's hunting them) or snappers as big as the ones we saw today.

We had a posse of snappers following us around; I think they just liked hanging out with us and adopted us into their school. Swimming through kelp tunnels.

Elise clocked me at like 53 seconds for one of my dives to a max depth of 7.5 meters! There were several times where my mask fogged up, and Elise kept telling me to just lick it, go to town on it, and make-out with it 😂!

A few times, I tried inhaling either through my snorkel or just normally with my mouth on the surface, but all I breathed in was a mouthful of saltwater, and I had to tread water for a bit and gag and cough it up. When my mask fogged up and when I inhaled water, Elise would ask me, "Are you having a good time? Should we head in? We can head in anytime you want." And my response every time was, "I could stay out here forever!"

Elise pointed out an eagle ray that was sneakily sitting on the ocean floor with some sand covering part of it up. We both dove down to get a closer look, and then he took off! We spooked him, I guess. So, Elise and I chased him!

Around 2 pm, Elise said, "we actually have to go," so we swam back to the beach. We changed out of our wetsuits and walked back to the car. At the car, we snacked on leftover dumplings from the Thursday night market and a Greek salad from the Matakana bakery.

Elise drove me to Cam's house, and we arrived around 4:30 pm. She dropped off some kingfish that she'd caught while spearfishing on Tuesday; she left some kingfish for Cam's family, for Jordan, and for me. Cam gave me a run-down of timeline for night canyoning. I drove to TSW to pick up Jordan, then drove to Piha to meet two clients, Owen and Javier.

We started the abseil (normally the fourth abseil, but for half-day trips and night canyon trips, it's the only abseil) at 8:30 pm, right at dusk. Jordan and both clients went down with their headlamps turned off, which was SO COOL!

By the time it was my turn to abseil down, it was proper dark, so I turned my headlamp on for my abseil. At the bottom of the abseil, we all turned headlamps on and kept them on for the rest of the canyon. Glow worms, bioluminescence, cave wetas, stars, more-pork owls (ruru), more glow worms, more bioluminescence, eels. Owen kept on saying things like, "it feels like I'm on an alien planet," "I feel like I'm on Pandora, the blue people planet in the movie 'Avatar,'" and "this seems like it's not even real life." It was pretty out-of-this-world when we walked through the bioluminescent algae. Every step we took, the ground beneath our feet would light up. When we'd been walking for several steps, we'd turn around and see each of our footsteps lit up by the bioluminescent algae. We played in the water, just rubbing all the surfaces we could find with our hands and feet, and as we excited the algae, it glowed! This was the clients' first time abseiling, first time canyoning, and first time night-canyoning. It was also my first time night-canyoning in Piha Canyon. I LOVED it! It was such a cool first experience in Piha Canyon at night, seeing the glow worms and the bioluminescence.

Drove the clients to Sky Tower in Auckland; Jordan navigated for me. I dropped Jordan off at TSW, then drove the van home. I pulled into my driveway at 11:59 pm.

I'm grateful for Elise. I'm grateful for Cam. I'm grateful for Jordan. I'm grateful for an amazing first night-descent of Piha Canyon. It was Jordan's first night-descent of Piha Canyon as well. Today was a BEST DAY EVER.

[krazys-ass-emporium]

May 2023 Black Hills Trip

So I took a trip out to the Black Hills of western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming to play dorky tourist. Since I have way more than the ten pictures tumblr limits you for a photo post, I'm going to make a text post (plus also I wanted to talk about some of them.)

Warning: this is gonna be kinda long lol.

First stop, the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD:

Then Wall Drug in Wall, SD:

The next day we went over to Wyoming. I've been working on my own original story since I was a teenager and it takes place in Wyoming. When we were out there we happened to be quite close to the town I wanted to base my story off of. The town is a little one called Sundance. I took so many random pictures for references and to get a general feel for it. I also think the town of Deadwood would make a good base too, so I will probably merge some elements of both places together to make what I was going for. Most of the pictures weren't all that impressive, but here are some of the best ones from there:

Since it was close by, we went over to Devils Tower as well. The funniest thing there was a conversation I overheard between a little boy and his dad. The kid was asking why there was so much stuff with aliens, and the dad replied, in the most Wyoming accent: "Because they're fixin' to take you."

Next we took our sweet time getting our butts over to see Mount Rushmore and stopped to stare at the scenery along the way:

The next day we did less touristy things and took the scenic route through Spearfish Canyon. This was in the morning and it had rained the night before and it was gorgeous:

We also went up to Flag Mountain Camp, a summer camp that my brother works at. He has an adorable new puppy too:

Then we went through Custer State Park and got to see a bunch of animals. I got good pictures of a burro and a coyote, but we also saw a snake, bison, deer, and pronghorn antelope:

[monkeybusiness23-dc]

Roughlock Falls in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota.

[stumbleimg]

Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota, USA (OC) [3840 x 2160]

[virtie333]

Moon image by Les Heiserman. Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota

[kucmap]

2024 Cross Country Trip #6

Continuing west we spent two days in South Dakota travelling through the Badlands, Custer State Park, and Spearfish Canyon. Badlands National Park spans over 240,000 acres of rugged terrain and dramatic landscapes. Known for its sharply eroded buttes, pinnacles, and spires, the park offers an awe-inspiring vista at every turn. Surrounded by sprawling grasslands, this destination feels both…

[dougrobyngoold]

2024 Hunter Tillman Charity Golf Tournament - Spearfish, SD

The past three days we have been hanging out in Spearfish with family and friends to participate in a charity golf tournament. The tournament is a fundraiser for the Hunter Tillman Foundation, which was established in remembrance of Hunter, the nephew of our good friend Roger. Hunter passed away in April 2019 and the foundation provides scholarships to individuals working toward a degree in the medical or special needs fields. This was our first time participating and it will definitely NOT be our last - it was a blast! Our team for the tournament was myself, Doug, our son Dan, and Doug's brother Bob.

Bob and Dan warming up at the campsite before the tournament.

Dan had to clean his clubs and golf balls, part of the pre-match routine!

Our best shots of the day - jello & jaeger shots on the 17th hole!

We played an amazing round of golf! No bogeys, ended up with a 57!

We won!! Unbelievable - Dan was pretty stoked about it all!

What a fun event. Hopefully, we will get a chance to do it again in the future. Oh, BTW, we gave this course, Spearfish Canyon Golf Course, a 9 out of 10 stars....we would have given it a 10, but it was too expensive to classify as a "podunk" course!

[xoxofan-girl]

Community Cave in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota

Discover the hidden gem of Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota - the enchanting Community Cave. Prepare to be captivated by the wonders of nature in this captivating English Pinterest style.

[stgibsonofficial]

Community Cave in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota Unleash your adventurous spirit and explore the stunning Community Cave in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota. Get ready for an exhilarating journey like no other.

[jwilce]

wilcephotos works FEATURED on FAA

To my subscribers only— I am delighted to say this photo has been featured by three great Fine Art America groups— Waterforms Seasons of the Trees in Photography, and Midwest America Photography I thank Doug Norkum in particular. He administers both 1 and 3! Here is the story: My wife and I were on a delightful trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. One day we ventured up Spearfish Canyon…

[agentmacmurray]

Community Cave in Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota

Discover the hidden gem of Spearfish Canyon, South Dakota - the enchanting Community Cave. Prepare to be captivated by the wonders of nature in this captivating English Pinterest style.