Visiting Sica Hollow

A great place to go hiking in northeastern South Dakota is Sica Hollow State Park. After spending so much time driving through open plains and farmland, I wasn’t expecting to find such a dense forest tucked into this part of the state.

The name Sica comes from a Dakota word commonly translated as “bad” or “evil.” The area has long been associated with Dakota stories and traditions, inspired in part by its unusual natural features. Iron-rich springs can give the water a reddish color, while gases bubbling through the water and wetlands added to the mysterious character of the hollow.

I wasn’t thinking much about evil spirits while I was hiking, but I could understand how the landscape developed its mysterious reputation. Parts of the forest were dark and surprisingly secluded, and once I was beneath the trees it felt completely different from the open South Dakota landscape I had been driving through.

This section of trail descending through the trees especially fit the atmosphere of the park. The deeper I walked into the hollow, the easier it was to forget that I was still in a part of South Dakota I had mostly associated with open plains and farmland.

The forest itself was one of the things I enjoyed most about the park. Fallen trees, thick undergrowth, fungi, and a dense canopy made parts of it feel surprisingly familiar to me.

I never found the bubbling springs or dramatically red water I had read about, but I was impressed by the park’s natural beauty. Much of the South Dakota landscape I had been traveling through was dominated by plains and farmland, so being back beneath a dense canopy of deciduous trees was a welcome change of scenery.

In fact, parts of the forest reminded me of what I grew up around back in Virginia. The opening in the vegetation above is actually a creek, although the plants had grown so tall that the water was almost completely hidden from view.

Even the fallen logs, fungi, and thick undergrowth felt more like the forests I knew from the eastern United States than the South Dakota I had pictured before this trip. I had almost started to forget that the state had forests like this at all.

The plant above appeared to be a thistle. I originally identified it as a bull thistle, an introduced species considered invasive in many parts of the United States. It’s still an attractive flower in my eyes, even if farmers and land managers aren’t nearly as fond of it.

This flower looked somewhat similar, but the leaves and flower head were different enough that I wasn’t confident identifying it.

Wildlife Around Sica Hollow

I encountered plenty of wildlife while traveling through this part of South Dakota, although I didn’t manage to photograph everything I saw. Several ponds near the roads were filled with large birds and waterfowl.

I originally identified the bird above as a swan, although looking back at the photograph I’m not confident enough in the identification to say exactly what species it was.

I had a little more confidence identifying these guys. I spotted a family of wild turkeys while exploring the area around Sica Hollow.

The wildlife wasn’t always anything exotic. Sometimes it was simply a rabbit disappearing through the vegetation or a tiny frog I noticed close to the ground, but those smaller encounters were part of what made wandering around the area enjoyable.

Sica Hollow wasn’t the South Dakota landscape I had expected before coming here, and that was what made it memorable. I had pictured open plains and grasslands, yet ended up hiking beneath a thick canopy through creeks, fallen trees, wildflowers, and wildlife. It was a small but completely different side of the state from the one I had seen through my windshield.