If I take a trip from rapid City, SD to Roscommon, Mi is there any decent places to ride along my route that will take me thru the UP of Michigan. Remember I said decent places as my riding is done on the 1.2 million acres of the Black Hills of SD. (brag-brag)

 

hey quick question about the black hills, do you need any permits or registration to ride there? We camp at the experimental forest off 385 each year for sturgis and I was always wondering if you could just ride a quad without anyone giving you a hard time.

 

Go for it no permits required. You should have a license for on 385. I'd like to know where in the expermental forest you can put up. Do you turn off on the expermental forest road North of Trout Haven or do you go west toward Rochford and then to the right. Take your ATV and head west on the forest service roads and trails and when you get to the oil road FS 17 head into Rochford and see Betsy & Roy and tell them Ed or Emmett sent you.

 

Yes! A few miles north of trout haven there was a biker campsite on the left hand side, on the corner of 385 and the road to experimental forest. That's where we stayed in 2005 anyway. We stayed at the top of a hill that was on one of those cattle roads, I do believe the closest paved road that crosses 385 was rochford rd. But when we tried to camp there last year they had the gate closed on the trail that leads to where we camped. So we found a pretty nice place off another dirt road a couple miles closer towards lead. There were a bunch of log trucks that would go up and down the road but we were far enough down a trail that we couldn't see them and hardly hear them. The first year when we camed I asked a guy who lived along that road to experimental forest about the rules for where you camp, and he just said you can camp anywhere, just no fires in SD, you need to go to wyoming if you want to have a fire. Was he right about camping anywhere?

 

He was right but there is a lot of private property mixed among our 1.2 million acres of Forest land.