South Quarry Trail Junction - Circle Trail
in Minnesota
The South Quarry Trail is an out-and-back path (~ 1/2 a mile roundtrip) along active quarries where American Indians have continuously quarried pipestone for thousands of years. Many travel great distances, spending a week or more of vacation time from their regular jobs. High humidity, heat, rain, mosquitoes, ticks, thorns, poison ivy, and lack of shade all combine to make quarrying a personal struggle.
Using heavy sledgehammers, pry bars, and wedges to break through the hard quartzite and hauling buckets of heavy rubble also make it an exhaustive struggle. Despite all this hardship, the quarrying of pipestone continues today from spring through fall. American Indian people hold pipestone in great reverence and many oral histories tell of its origin.
A belief held by many is that the stone was formed from the flesh and blood of their ancestors.
- States
- Minnesota
- Trail type
- National Monument trail
- Centroid nearest city
- Minneapolis, MN · 165 mi · ~5 hr drive
- Centroid coords
- 44.0130°, -96.3247°
About Pipestone National Monument
This trail is inside Pipestone National Monument, a national monument managed by the U.S. National Park Service. Conditions, road status, trail closures, and reservation requirements are published on the park's NPS page — check it before driving in, especially in winter or during major weather events.
Official NPS trail page: https://www.nps.gov/places/south-quarry-trail-junction-circle-trail.htm
Park homepage: https://www.nps.gov/pipe/index.htm
Plan your hike
Maps + permits: long-distance trails like this often require permits for through-hiking, backcountry camping, or specific sections (especially in National Parks). Check with the maintaining organisation listed above and the relevant land manager before booking travel.
Water + supplies: water sources vary seasonally on most U.S. trails. Carry a filter and consult current trail-condition reports — through-hiker journals (PCT-L, AT Reddit, etc.) and the maintaining organisation publish regular updates.
When to go: hiking seasons vary widely with elevation, latitude, and snowpack. Through-hikers traditionally start the AT in March-April (Springer northbound) and the PCT in late April (Campo northbound). High-elevation western trails (CDT, JMT, Wonderland) generally aren't passable until July.
If you've hiked South Quarry Trail Junction - Circle Trail and have current notes (water sources, trail closures, permit changes), tell us at /contact — we update pages as we learn.
Other trails within 50 miles
Sources
Trail data on this page is compiled from OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), the maintaining organisation's public-facing materials, and Wikipedia (CC BY-SA where excerpts are quoted). Distance, terminus, and descriptive text for nationally-designated trails are hand-curated from federal land-manager websites and trail-association sources. We do not modify the underlying data; this page presents what is already publicly recorded. To suggest corrections, see our methodology page.