Location
South Dakota,
US
Distance
6.8 mi
Vertical Gain
1,472 ft
Description
GPS Track
Black Elk Loop.gpx80.34 KB
FKTs
Male
Female
Justin Grunewald | 48m 14s | |||
Ty Fluth | 50m 42s | |||
Ty Fluth | 56m 24s | |||
Jeff Valliere | 59m 46s |
Male
This route on the old FKT site
Comments
If conditions are favorable, I will be setting off tomorrow, June 26th, around 6 a.m. to set the women's FKT.
Due to recurring rainfall, I waited a day to let the trail dry out. I set out just after 6:00 am on Saturday, June 27th and it was a pretty perfect morning for it. I started my watch right where the trail meets the parking lot, touched the marker on the lookout tower, and came right back down, stopping my watch at the end of the trail (not the trail #9 sign) for a time of 1:24:42.
We are in South Dakota on vacation from Wisconsin. Hiked little devils tower yesterday with my family and figured I’d give black elk peek a whirl this morning!
That's awesome! How did it go? According to strava, even though you blew me out of the water, it looks like you started and finished up the trail a bit farther. Good luck!
Looks to me like the fastest recorded men's time on Strava for the 3, 4, 9 loop is this one by Chris Hirsch in 65:03.
https://www.strava.com/activities/5918193137/overview
I'll be in SD this weekend for Lean Horse and hope to give this loop a good spin.
I completed the counterclockwise variant in 54:18: https://www.strava.com/activities/9679605268. It appears that Golden Harper did the clockwise loop in ~58 minutes in 2020: https://www.strava.com/activities/4051256801/overview which is actually the previous fastest recorded time that I can find. It appears that most people do the clockwise direction. In retrospect, that direction is probably a little faster, as trail 4 has a gentler average grade and a shorter uphill section on the downhill.