Beauty in the familiar: Returning to Crow Peak

Back in March, Clarissa and I spent a night away from home in Spearfish. When we first moved the South Dakota, Spearfish was where we hung our hats, and while living in Rapid City is a bit more convenient, I do miss the days of living in the Northern Hills. The morning after our off-grid cabin stay, we made our way to Crow Peak Trail. We’ve hiked it before, all the way back in the halcyon days of 2019. We didn’t have Tom yet—hell, we only had one dog at the time.

It was a balmy day in mid-June, my brother-in-law was visiting, and despite Clarissa having hiked it a few times, I’d never summited Crow Peak before. So up we went, then down we went, and were back at Sawyers having beers by the evening.

It’s not a crazy trek: roughly eight miles total—out and back—and an elevation gain of 1,570 feet to the summit at 5,760 feet above sea level. It is challenging at times, especially when it comes to sun exposure, which made some sections of the trail into an oven on the already sweltering June hike. 

We didn’t expect the same level of heat on the 2025 trip. It was March, after all. But, to our surprise, the same sections had us removing layers and rolling up pant-legs. It was an unseasonably warm day, but we owed much of our sweat to the same areas of sun exposure. The trail is near bald in some areas because of the Crow Peak Fire, which burned more than 2,700 acres from late June to early July 2016. The area remains scarred by this fire damage, and if you take this hike you’ll still see charred stumps and unstable trees along the trail. 

But this post isn’t meant to be a history lesson, as much as I like a little walk into the past. Instead, let’s look at what happens when you tread on ground you’ve already covered.

The same… But different

Although I’ve whined that the sweltering sections hadn’t improved in the almost six years it had been since my last visit, things were not identical. Yes, the trail was the same, but the journey as a whole was quite different. For starters, much of Higgins Gulch Road, which leads to the trailhead, was covered in a thick sheet of ice—a significant difference from the conditions in June 2019. 

That ice stretched from the parking area up the trail. We pulled on some microspikes, shouldered our packs, and got walking. 

The steps of countless visitors before us had compacted the snow on the trail, and warm days had melted it just enough for the cold nights to leave a hard, slick, miniature glacier on the path. We were grateful for the spikes. Without them, we’d have spent a lot of time on our asses. But before long, the trail turned, entered a bald, sunny patch, and ice gave way to mud. 

It was spotty at first. We hesitated to remove the spikes because we would turn a bend in the path and be back on a skating rink. Eventually though, the trail became random patches of ice amidst quagmires, and we pulled the spikes off our boots, shook loose as much of the mud as we could manage, stowed them, and carried on.

The greatest difference between our 2019 and 2024 hikes was the final stretch to the summit. Crow Peak has a few false summits that make you feel, as you’re hiking, like the mountain fakes you out three or four times before you reach the actual summit. It tricked me back in 2019, but I was anticipating it in 2024. I also expected ice—like we had encountered back at the beginning of the trail—to cover the summit, exposed as it was. What I didn’t expect was snow, over waist-deep at times. But as we approached the last stretch, that’s what we found ourselves slogging through.

The surface was hard and crusty, the product of melting in the sun and then refreezing at night. But when we broke through that crust, which we frequently did, our feet met with cold, slushy snow beneath. If we followed one of the few sets of footprints—the results of previous hikers postholing, followed by others retracing those same steps—we made slow, stumbling progress along the trail. Or what we thought was trail, anyway. When it’s buried beneath several feet of snow, you have to follow your best guess, and at this point in the hike there was only one way to go, which was ever angled upward.

As we slipped and stumbled in the icy prints, several feet deep, I moaned and groaned about out stilted progress. But ultimately, I like these experiences. Sometimes it’s fun when it’s not fun. And that being the case, this was fun, in spite of—or because of—the fact that it was difficult. 

Our slow, high-knee march finally brought us to our first glimpse of the summit sign.

The snow shallowed, we stepped onto gravel and took the last few steps to the top. We had returned to the summit of Crow Peak. 

Everything old is new again

A lot of people are always chasing “the new.” If they’ve seen, done, or had something once, they’re not interested in a repeat performance. I’m not one of them. While I do like seeking out new experiences, I’m not afraid to admit that I take comfort in the familiar. But not because it’s boring—because it’s never boring to me. 

I walk my dogs in pretty much the same route through the park every morning. When I get them to the woods, we tend to visit the same two or three spots. It would be easy to see me as a creature of habit, and that’s not wholly incorrect. I even get the same Blizzard every time I go to Dairy Queen—M&M, for the record.

I like what I like. It’s important to try new things, but it’s also okay to love something. It’s why we have comfort foods, rewatch our favorite TV shows, and return to beloved books more than once. I don’t get bored with the things I love, and I think that’s true for most people. 

And also for the record, those are pizza, Community, and Deep Survival. Respectively.

Same old, same old

Peak baggers might look askance at returning to a previously hiked or climbed summit. But when pressed, they too likely have a favorite stomping grounds. Or at least a favorite Blizzard. And the reality is that most of us can’t hit a new trail every single day. And that’s okay. 

It’s like what Marcel Proust wrote in Remembrance of Things Past: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” 

Still feel like repeating a trail, mountain, or other experience is boring? Then let’s do a little thought experiment.

The Groundhog Day of hiking?

What if you woke up tomorrow and could only hike one trail, the same trail, for the rest of your life—maybe it’s Crow Peak. Would you decide to never hike again?

I know exactly what I’d do. I’d hike the shit out of that one trail. If Crow Peak were the only trail I could ever hike again, I’d find out what a summer sunset looks like from the summit. I’d find out how many golden leaves will litter the path in autumn. I’d snowshoe to the first rays of light for a winter sunrise, and I’d slowly plod up a muddy spring trail looking for animal tracks.

I’d walk that same old trail over and over again, trying to see it with new eyes. 

Every. 

Single. 

Day.

There’s nothing wrong with new and novel. But there’s also something to be said for making an effort to make things new and novel. 

By all means, chase whatever new goal or experience has made its way into your soul—I know I will. But don’t forget the well-worn path that’s right down the road. It’s an old friend who can’t wait to see you again. 

And if you have a chance, go hike Crow Peak. If you already have, maybe do it again.