Our first time in South Dakota: Exploring Spearfish Canyon + visiting historic Deadwood

after spending six days hiking around montana we have headed east to our 26th state south dakota with national parks lots of wildlife waterfalls cool small towns presidents unique roadside attractions beautiful nature and so much more south dakota is a breathtaking diverse and fun place to explore and this week we are partnering with south dakota tourism to show you all the best hikes things to do places to see and delicious food to eat all across the state we're excited to bring you all along as we experience it all for the first time welcome to south dakota [Music] we are so pumped to be here in south dakota to be honest we did not know much about south dakota until we started researching a few months ago and similar to our experience in idaho it just seems like such an underrated state with so many beautiful and fun things to do we are starting our south dakota road trip in the western part of the state near a town called spearfish which is known for the spearfish canyon national scenic byway which is where today's adventure begins our first stop in spearfish canyon is the spot called the devil's bathtub which looks like this really cool little swimming hole with a natural water slide kind of like the one that we filmed behind my parents house during our time in austin quarantining but it looks quite a bit cooler we hear that the trail is about a mile each way and we also hear that you just have to cross a bunch of streams and rivers and creeks so we're gonna get wet [Music] this trail has been a little confusing so far we've crossed the stream maybe five or six times and there's times where you don't know whether you're supposed to cross it or keep going on the same side it's kind of one of those choose your own adventure kind of trails it seems like and right now is one of those times where we don't know if we're supposed to keep going across the stream i don't know we'll figure it out [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] i think we made it to the devil's bathtub it's really cool there's like three different tiers there's multiple slides but i and we couldn't tell at first which one you go down but i think we know which one it is it's like the steeper and like kind of smoothest looking of the three this one looks a bit cooler than the one in your parents backyard but i think we're gonna give this uh this slide a try i'm kind of nervous i'm gonna bust my butt on a rock or something but you know gotta go for it i mean we came at sunrise which it's definitely not warm and not swimming weather but we here gets really busy here we wanted to beat the crowd so it's gonna be a little cold but i think we're gonna do it we're not big daredevils so i'm a little nervous about this i don't know it looks fun but i just don't know what to expect and we've seen lots of videos of like little kids going down it adults going down it so we're about 99 confident that this is a pretty normal safe thing to do oh it's cold okay getting in this thing [Music] oh man this slide is a blast the worst part is we're here at 7 20 in the morning and it's freaking cold the thing i was worried about was where the slide meets the water i just didn't want there to be a rock jamming up you know but it only it's only maybe waist high there's nothing there so yeah you don't go that fast on it but maybe if you push yourself off a little bit maybe you'll go a little quicker all right it's my turn kind of nervous about this i've never done anything like this before oh it's cold all right here we go all right my pants fell down that was fun yeah it's uh it's smooth but there are some kind of rocks and your pants might fall down just warning [Music] it's so much fun one of the best parts is i took some photos of adam going down the slide and when he's like hitting the water his face is like it's so funny we're headed back to the van if you can come early it'll be really cold but you'll most likely have it all to [Music] yourself [Music] like we mentioned earlier we are on the spearfish canyon national scenic byway it's a beautiful area with a river running through it and some stops to see some waterfalls and some hikes so we're gonna drive around and see what we can [Music] find [Music] so there are three waterfalls that we're going to stop at in spearfish canyon and the first one is spearfish falls and from the sign it says it's about 1.5 miles and it's moderate difficulty and it looks really cool we're gonna hope we're here uh mid to late august so the water flow may not be awesome but the photos we see it looks like it can be really really pretty [Music] it's flowing pretty good in the photo it was one like giant stream but it's a bunch of like different waterfalls all together it's so pretty [Music] that was a great first stop on our waterfall tour it's a quick and easy hike it's relatively flat and it felt less than a mile and a half to us but it's a great payoff at the end and next up we're gonna drive a little bit up the road to hike to rough lock falls [Music] with rough lock falls you have two options there's a trailhead that's about a mile or you can keep going down the dirt road and just park and we think you can just walk right up to it and we're about to find out we haven't even made it out of the parking lot yet but there's a stream that you walk along and the water is so freaking clear also we are loving how green it is in spearfish canyon there's just tons of green trees but then there's there's all these like tan cool rock structures just kind of jutting out it's so beautiful so it turns out there is a little bit of a trek to be able to see the falls but it's a nice paved pathway like this so it's not too bad there are so many waterfalls there's like 50 of them just tons of different streams there's a kind of shorter but tons of stream section right here and then in the back there's a taller waterfall i don't know if you can see it it's a bit more narrow but i was not expecting to stop to be this [Music] cool and for a waterfall stop number three we're at bridalvale falls which is actually just a little overlook on the side of the road so it's super quick and easy okay we lied so there's the boardwalk here you can get a view of but you can also walk down below the boardwalk cross the little stream and get to the base of it so from the road this waterfall is definitely not as flowing as the other ones we saw today but we're so glad we saw people walking up to it because we could literally stand stand on the waterfall and touch the water and have the row of god of rocks warning if you're gonna stand right by the waterfall just keep an eye out above you because there were some rocks that started falling over the edge and almost hit us it was a little scary but we are okay but what i was saying is that it's really cool that you can walk right up to the waterfall you can touch the water touch the rocks it's just i don't know i can't think of a time that we've gotten that close to a waterfall normally to stay behind a barrier so that was really cool so now that we've cheated death and used one of our nine lives the only way to celebrate get ice cream [Music] all right we made it to downtown spearfish to leon's creamery to get ourselves some ice cream so i got strawberries and cream and then on the bottom is chocolate peanut but no peanut butter and chocolate m m's yeah and i got the same peanut butter m m's and then i got chocolate chocolate chip they sounded like they'd be really good together yeah and as you can see mine came in a special little container here a gluten-free cone with chocolate dipping bars i'm so jealous it looks so good so this place is like a cute little they don't have the inside open right now you order the window but it looks like a really cute place it's like kind of tucked into this like really historic looking building just in the middle of downtown they change their flavors all the time they have eight flavors and they basically just swap out whatever ones sell out so the peanut m m one is a new one it wasn't on the menu like a day ago yeah it came in wanting a certain flavor we showed up they didn't have it i was a little disappointed but strawberries and cream sounded good and so did the peanut butter chocolate m m m which is the new one that i didn't know coming in so i'm pumped for it it's gonna be real good oh my god i was hoping it was peanut butter ice cream and i'm nine yeah oh my gosh peanut butter ice cream is probably one of my favorite ice creams of all time peanut butter or caramel oh and it has the crunch of the m m's y'all know we like our chunky ice creams oh good it's nice and got a pop of the strawberry but it's also creamy too it has a little bit of crunch from the seeds that's really good that's really good strawberry ice cream i shall feed you chocolate chocolate chip they're all super creamy delicious smooth yes and ice cold of course we have some interesting flavors as well like avocado and earl no london fog london fog so yeah this place is incredible super good after morning at the canyon [Music] just 20 minutes up the road is the historic town of deadwood which was established in 1876 after gold was discovered here which led to the black hills gold rush tons of people flooded the town and it was known for its lawlessness and the city has now been designated a national historic landmark district for its preservation of the gold rush era architecture so we're going to wander around and see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into [Music] we love us a good theme town and i guess this technically is not a theme town because it's mostly the original architecture but wow this is probably the coolest town we've ever been in the architecture is just very historic and beautiful and unique and it feels like we've either stepped back in time or stepped onto a movie set oh man it is awesome [Music] [Applause] [Music] do these buffs make us look like bandits one of the more popular things to do in deadwood is to come to the mount mariah cemetery not only does it have beautiful views of the city and the hills surrounding it but it's the final resting place of a few famous residents [Music] the two most famous people buried here are wild bill and calamity jane wild bill was a lawman and a gunslinger who moved here in 1876 in pursuit of his true passion which was gambling he was down the hill in the saloon where he was playing poker and he was shot and killed to death by jack mccall we actually walked by where he was shot and then where they arrested the guy yeah so crazy and he was eventually buried at this cemetery so a little bit about calamity jane and i didn't memorize my facts so i'm gonna read off the brochure they gave us but she was known for her boisterous lifestyle and she had varied occupations like a cook and a laundress woman of the night a bull whacker and she also was a storyteller in buffalo bill's wild west show so she came to deadwood in 1876 and she apparently acquired a reputation as a notorious alcoholic she died in 1903 and her dying wish was to be buried next to wild bill it's rumored they were lovers but it's also said that maybe it wasn't reciprocated she loved bill he didn't love her back so she wouldn't be very next to him but some i read online i don't know if it's true that some people think maybe it was a prank by his friends to get them buried next to each other since he didn't love her i don't know but it's interesting and here they are at the mount mariah cemetery buried together forever [Music] we forgot to mention that it costs two dollars per person to enter the cemetery but i think it's free for kids and it's totally worth the cost not only are the views from the cemetery beautiful of the city and the hills and mountains around the cemetery itself is gorgeous it has these really tall super pretty trees and it was really fun to get to learn some history of the deadwood area but we are rolling out of the cemetery because we have one more sweet adventure here in deadwood [Music] we haven't met our sugar quota for the day and we were told by our patron trevor to come to this place called chubby chocolate chubby chipmunk chubby chipmunk chocolate it's cute they have alvin and the chipmunks outside so we got a couple little treats here oh yeah i think they're known for their truffles that adam got hold on there's a truffle in there oh adam's is intense see this little thing it's not gonna do it for me i have to go for the bigger items adam's motto is go big or go home yeah buddy so i got the devil went down to georgia he found a spicy caramel patty topped with a hot mama truffle and smothered with spicy dark chocolate i don't think that goes to the tuna no it didn't but i tried i tried it as fast as i could but yeah there's dark chocolate on the bottom there's uh it says homemade caramel spicy caramel and then there's a truffle smushed on top of there it has glitter on it yeah the truffle that is in there is supposed to have 66 percent cocoa and then i think like five or six hot peppers in it or something so that's definitely gonna be a hot goodness i asked the woman working there what was the most popular truffle and she said the chipmunk treasure which is a milk chocolate center with toffee praline and coconut like my favorite things ever uh dipped in dark chocolate and topped with almonds and toffee boom boom it looks really good shall we try say chipmunk treasure five times fast chipmunk treasure chipmunk treasure chipmunk treasure chipmunk treasure chipmunk treasure you did it mine dominates yours boom i haven't even fully tasted it it's so good oh my gosh the inside has this um really soft milk chocolate and like a gooey i guess praline goo oh wow this is delicious the the caramel is nice and like chewy and stringy and good i haven't gotten much spice yet but i'm sure it's in there we're gonna get to it eventually i was expecting a lot more heat kind of like the the chocolate covered peppers we had in santa fe so i don't really see much heat so i'm kind of let down on that but otherwise it's freaking delicious this is this is awesome it's heaven i took a bite of atoms and i definitely felt the heat in my throat but maybe i'm just a wimp that chocolate was delicious thank you so much trevor for telling us to go there but man we are in a sugar coma now we've had way too many sweets today so we're gonna head to our campground and just relax for the rest of the day we're kind of campground hopping during this trip but the first two nights we are staying at grizzly creek primitive campground which is near custer state park but it's been an amazing first day here in south dakota we kind of knew what to expect from researching but it's honestly just blown us away so yeah i'm still thinking about spearfish canyon like the canyon walls and the river running through it and just the lushness is absolutely beautiful so beautiful but we are going to rest up the rest of the day because we have another big adventure tomorrow with some very familiar faces [Music] you

Channel: Adventures of A+K

Views: 194,865

Keywords: south dakota, deadwood south dakota, spearfish canyon, south dakota travel, south dakota travel vlog, things to do in south dakota, what to do in south dakota, things to do at spearfish canyon, what to do at spearfish canyon, spearfish canyon sd, what to do in sd, things to do in sd, things to do in south dakota usa, what to do in south dakota usa, black hills south dakota, things to do in the black hills, what to do in the black hills, south dakota road trip

Id: gDP9DPgbSQY

Length: 19min 45sec (1185 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 03 2020