Black Hills National Forest · South Dakota, Wyoming

Little Spearfish

0.6 mi of trail, end to end · Little Spearfish Trailhead (Trail #80): 6 mi loop in the Service's write-up · native material surface · trail No. 80 · trail class 3 · typical grade 12-20% · tread 24-36 inches wide · hiking, horse, bike · seasonal: hiking 04/01-11/30

Trailheads Little Spearfish Trailhead (Trail #80) Drive there · Rimrock Trailhead (Trail #79) Drive there

Little Spearfish Trailhead (Trail #80) 6 mi loop · the Forest Service's write-up

A placeholder image
Photo: US Forest Service

Overview

The Little Spearfish Trail is a 6 mile loop that meanders through stands of ponderosa pine, quaking aspen, and paper birch. The nearby Spearfish Creek offers a year round home to the American Dipper. Dippers are small songbirds uniquely adapted to feeding underwater. The common name "dipper" comes from this bird's habit of bending its legs so its entire body moves up and down in a dipping motion Dippers can dive and propel themselves under the water with swimming motions of their wings. In shallow water, they walk along the bottom of streams by grasping stones with their elongated toes. Dippers feed almost exclusively under water on larval forms of aquatic insects including caddisfly, mayfly and stonefly nymphs.

Brochure

This trailhead on fs.usda.gov

Rimrock Trailhead (Trail #79) the Forest Service's write-up

The Rimrock Trail can be accessed from the Little Spearfish Trailhead located near Timon Campground. The trail includes two loop trails and a spur trail that connects to the Old Baldy Trail, for a total of 7.2 miles of trail. The Rimrock Trail meanders through stands of ponderosa pine, quaking aspen, and paper birch.

This trailhead on fs.usda.gov

Every trail in Black Hills National Forest

Other trails from the same trailheads

All 535 trails in Black Hills National ForestFind a trailForest on fs.usda.gov

About this trail's facts

The lines are the US Forest Service's National Forest System trails layer (public domain), read 2026-10-16 and simplified for the map; the length is the line's, end to end, and the class, surface, grade and tread width are the forest's own entries where it publishes them - a forest that publishes the centreline alone has none. The trailheads and the points along the way are the Service's recreation points, and the write-ups its own recarea text, unedited. Heights come from USGS 3DEP through Terrain Tiles on AWS (Mapzen/Tilezen), read along each line and rounded; a short trail on steep ground can be off by a few tens of feet. Closures change: check the forest's own site before you go.