Virginia to Black Hills in my 4xe

[Andy@AAV]

Last year the group of friends that used to run American Adventurist decided we needed to do a get-together trip. We selected the Black Hills of South Dakota as our destination to do the South Dakota Backcountry Discovery Route. The meetup was at Mount Rushmore Brewing Company in Custer on June 1st so I crammed 10 days of supplies into my 4xe and hit the road with 4 days to make the cross country trip.

It took me 2 1/2 days to get to Badlands NP. I caught a nap the first night and crashed in a hotel the second to avoid trying to find a dispersed camp at night in a storm (storms were the norm on this trip!), but I did get to see some beautiful sunsets and sunrises as I made my way across the country.

I had an extra day to enjoy the park, if you get the chance definitely check it out! Amazing scenery plus some wildlife that you don't usually see, especially if you live on the east coast. I thought it was incredible to see buffalo, but by the end of the trip the novelty had worn off.

I grabbed the next-to-last remaining spot at the Sage Creek primitive campground, set up my tent and watched the weather rolling in. No cell service but the starlink mini worked great mounted on my roof rack and let me track the massive storm approaching. I decided to ride out the weather in the Jeep (smart choice with all the lightning, rain and wind gusts!) and didn't get to sleep until after midnight.

Later I told my sister that I'm not sure if that was the worst weather I had camped in, but I couldn't remember a time when it had been worse. Only about half of the tents were left standing the next day but the Gazelle T4 held up great with just a small amount of water that blew in under the fly. The ranger said the next day that we got 3 inches of rain that evening and I would believe it. The ground was several inches of muddy clay that clung to anything. I spent the better part of the morning trying to clean as much as I could from the tent and dry out everything, I still had a week of camping left. But not this night, I had a hotel reservation in Custer on the 4th day of the trip to do laundry, resupply (somehow I only brought one half-empty can of Jetboil fuel?), and get some local food. If you are in Custer, the Sage Creek Grill was amazing!

A long post and I haven't even started the trip yet! More to follow...

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[Andy@AAV]

This was before the storm hit, then it went on for 4+ hours.

 

[BobW]

Never been there, looks amazing--Teddy Roosevelt country!

I do remember one very windy, dusty campout in Death Valley where the red wine had an especially earthy bouquet. Didn't lose any tents though.

 

[alphawolff]

Beautiful, but I couldn't even imagine loading up a 4XE for a trip like this. Were you at all nervous the Jeep would let you down?

 

[Andy@AAV]

Beautiful, but I couldn't even imagine loading up a 4XE for a trip like this. Were you at all nervous the Jeep would let you down?

Not at all. I only worry when I read the forums, mine has been great (except that 10 week wait for a new battery).

The jeep performed great for the entire trip, the only issue I had was the stupid adaptive cruise constantly slowing when passing semi trucks on the highway, but that’s just Stelantis engineering…

 

[WannFly]

my old stomping ground, its beautiful up there

 

[Gio]

Beautiful pictures. We love it out there!

 

[Opus]

Small world. My wife and I split an order of trash-can nachos from Mount Rushmore Brewing Company about a week after you were there. They had a limited run beer there called Imperial Snot that may be the best stout I've ever had.

 

[Andy@AAV]

Small world. My wife and I split an order of trash-can nachos from Mount Rushmore Brewing Company about a week after you were there. They had a limited run beer there called Imperial Snot that may be the best stout I've ever had.

I can't drink beer but several of the group had that one, including one t-shirt with the name on it.

 

[Andy@AAV]

I started the following day by loading the Jeep with clean laundry and a mostly-mud free sleeping bag, refilled water jugs and tossed some items in the fridge. My GF gave me a bag of chips at the last minute before I left home and I declined to open them up to see if we could go high enough on the BDR to make the bag burst (it didn't unfortunately).

We all caught up over lunch in Custer then headed out with 6 rigs and 7 of us. The first stop was Mount Rushmore via some winding pavement. I had never been there and it didn't disappoint, worth the entry fee for sure. When we returned to our vehicles I discovered I had knocked the plug on the fridge loose when loading stuff in the morning, it was sitting at just under 50 degrees. I had to toss the meat I had brought for dinners but I had a store of freeze dried food that I could use.

We then hit some forrest service roads to explore the area for a few hours and look for camp. The scenery kept pulling my eyes off the road but it was all smooth and wide gravel paths except for a steep rocky climb to the campsite our group lead had identified earlier. To fit with the trip's theme we had storms on and off during the afternoon but luckily we only got enough rain to keep the dust down.

Camp was on a hill with amazing views of the surrounding mountains but not quite level but we made do. Only 2 of us were in ground tents but we found enough flat ground to make it work (I had my tent almost touching the jeep that I leveled on some logs). We all sat around (no campfire unfortunately due to a burn ban) talking before another rain storm had us run for tents just after sundown.

Another storm rolled through after midnight with high gusty winds but light rain. I failed to use the guy lines on my tent and the wind kept collapsing one side until I bit the bullet and ran out into the rain to guy it out. Lesson learned, don't believe the weather forecast and stake it out fully!

 

[ObiMatt87]

Not at all. I only worry when I read the forums, mine has been great (except that 10 week wait for a new battery).

The jeep performed great for the entire trip, the only issue I had was the stupid adaptive cruise constantly slowing when passing semi trucks on the highway, but that’s just Stelantis engineering…

Same for my brother's 4xe, so good on you for getting out there. While there have definitely been issues, I think the vast majority of the bajillion 4xes overall have been okay.

 

[ObiMatt87]

Last year the group of friends that used to run American Adventurist decided we needed to do a get-together trip. We selected the Black Hills of South Dakota as our destination to do the South Dakota Backcountry Discovery Route. The meetup was at Mount Rushmore Brewing Company in Custer on June 1st so I crammed 10 days of supplies into my 4xe and hit the road with 4 days to make the cross country trip.

It took me 2 1/2 days to get to Badlands NP. I caught a nap the first night and crashed in a hotel the second to avoid trying to find a dispersed camp at night in a storm (storms were the norm on this trip!), but I did get to see some beautiful sunsets and sunrises as I made my way across the country.

I had an extra day to enjoy the park, if you get the chance definitely check it out! Amazing scenery plus some wildlife that you don't usually see, especially if you live on the east coast. I thought it was incredible to see buffalo, but by the end of the trip the novelty had worn off.

I grabbed the next-to-last remaining spot at the Sage Creek primitive campground, set up my tent and watched the weather rolling in. No cell service but the starlink mini worked great mounted on my roof rack and let me track the massive storm approaching. I decided to ride out the weather in the Jeep (smart choice with all the lightning, rain and wind gusts!) and didn't get to sleep until after midnight.

Later I told my sister that I'm not sure if that was the worst weather I had camped in, but I couldn't remember a time when it had been worse. Only about half of the tents were left standing the next day but the Gazelle T4 held up great with just a small amount of water that blew in under the fly. The ranger said the next day that we got 3 inches of rain that evening and I would believe it. The ground was several inches of muddy clay that clung to anything. I spent the better part of the morning trying to clean as much as I could from the tent and dry out everything, I still had a week of camping left. But not this night, I had a hotel reservation in Custer on the 4th day of the trip to do laundry, resupply (somehow I only brought one half-empty can of Jetboil fuel?), and get some local food. If you are in Custer, the Sage Creek Grill was amazing!

A long post and I haven't even started the trip yet! More to follow...

Terrific rundown of your trip and love the pics! We lived in Grand Forks, ND, for my second Air Force assignment and used that time to get out there and explore way before we had kids or ever owned a Jeep. ND, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, SD--all beautiful states that we loved seeing. So much so that this fall we are looking at making a return to that area in a massive round robin trip from San Antonio for the first time in nearly 30 years. Looking forward to it.

 

[Only-In-A-Jeep]

Just got back to Georgia from Custer/Black Hills/Badlands. Awesome country.

 

[Varraram]

Never been there but for sure looks fun.

 

[wibornz]

When visiting Mount Rushmore, try and catch the Sunset and nightly ceremony. They light of the faces on the mountain with lights and the sunsets are cool. They have a short movie, about Mount Rushmore, and call veterans down on to the stage for a flag lowering ceremony and present the flag to the oldest veteran. It is worth seeing.

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