Have you ever wondered about all of the trails that can be found along Tinton Road just outside of Spearfish?  Me too…so I decided to go and check some of them out.

 

 

 

 

We hiked the part of the Tinton Trail that is just past the Spirit of the Hills Wildlife Sanctuary.  If you Take Tinton Road from Spearfish and continue on it after the stop sign, you will pass the sanctuary on your left.  Just after the sanctuary there is a cattle gate that you will cross over and immediately to your left there is a parking area.  The parking area continues onto a logging road and slightly to its left you should see the trail.

I don’t know a lot of the facts about this trail but Google has helped me figure out a few bits and pieces.  The trail is approximately 8 miles long.  There is a part of the trail that runs along the right side of Tinton Road and thus is referred to as Right Side Trail.  Also, a section is called Fight club, though I’m not sure which section this is referring to.  Several mountain bike races occur on this trail every year including the Dakota Five-O which takes place over Labor Day weekend.

The portion of the trail that we hiked we have been referring to as the Sanctuary Loop as it is a loop in the Tinton Trail that is right at the beginning and therefore close to the sanctuary.  The first mile of this loop breaks at a point that is intersected by the logging road that began at the parking area.  We hiked the trail until this point the took a right onto this road and followed it back to our vehicle, thus making about a 2 mile loop.

How do you get to Tinton Trail and Sanctuary Loop?

View Tinton Trail/Sanctuary Loop South Dakota in a larger map