Parking
Use the marked Fisherman Flats Trailhead parking at the eastern end. No named lot or road directions are given for the western junction near French Creek, so confirm pickup access before starting a through-hike.
Overview
About Rimrock Trail
Why go
- A single mapped line makes a direct south-rim traverse.
Heads up
- Western access and return logistics are unclear.
Map & elevation
The route
Loading the Custer map
Full mapElevation4,501–5,082 ft
Plan your hike
Before you go
Parking
Safety
The highest, rockiest slopes around here are a summer buffet for grizzly bears.
Custer Tour Guide
Your drive to Rimrock Trail, narrated.
Parkwolf is a GPS audio tour guide for Custer State Park. As you drive, it chimes in with what’s ahead: hidden gems, upcoming stops, history, geology, and wildlife, right through your car’s speakers.
Recorded for this trailhead
Fisherman Flats: A Short, Steep Creek Walk0:00 / 0:24
“Fisherman Flats Trailhead is coming up, with a short but steep walk down toward French Creek. Choose this if you'd like to sit on a rock outcrop above the water and don't mind climbing back up.”
Plays as you drive up to this trailhead in the Parkwolf Custer Tour Guide.
More stories near here in the app
- Read the Deer’s Tail
- The Elk You Hear First
- The Burros' Old Job
- A Fuzzy Sign of Spring
- 82 audio storiesacross Custer’s roads, triggered by GPS as you drive
- Wildlife heatmapsfor Bison, Wapiti, Bighorn Sheep, and 13 more
- Works offlinemaps, 40 trails, 49 places, and audio download before you lose signal
- CarPlay readysimple controls built for the drive
“We recently toured Badlands, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and more! We learned so much from this app as we toured each of these sites. The audio tours are worth the money.”
Trail guide
Hiking Rimrock Trail
Know the routeRimrock is a 3.
Rimrock is a 3.1-mile point-to-point multi-use trail running west from Fisherman Flats Trailhead along the south rim of French Creek Natural Area to an unnamed western junction. The map draws one connected line, not a loop; 3.1 miles is treated as one way, though the mileage convention is not stated. A georeferenced trace of that line measures about 2.65 miles, so treat both the published distance and the stored line as approximate. The separate 0.6-mile Fisherman Flats Trail is not part of Rimrock.
Access and effortUse the marked Fisherman Flats Trailhead as the known access.
Use the marked Fisherman Flats Trailhead as the known access. The western endpoint is an unnamed junction near the French Creek area, and no road directions or named trailhead are given there. Arrange a pickup before walking through, or plan to retrace the line. Terrain elevation samples suggest about 900 feet of cumulative climbing over the route and roughly two hours one way; these are estimates, not posted trail figures.
French Creek settingThe mapped trail follows the south side of French Creek Natural Area.
The mapped trail follows the south side of French Creek Natural Area. The wider area is described with sheer creek walls, mixed pine and hardwood stands, and native vegetation, but no source pins those features to a Rimrock viewpoint. Treat them as regional context rather than a promise of a particular overlook. The park map marks Rimrock as multi-use, and park guidance says hikers, horseback riders, and mountain bikers share several trails. Route-specific surface, grade, and wayfinding details are not published.
Wildlife
Wildlife in Custer
993 sightingsBisonMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
91 sightingsWapitiMost seen around 6 AMSighting map
258 sightingsBighorn SheepMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
85 sightingsMountain GoatMost seen around 7 AMSighting map
256 sightingsBurroMost seen around 6 PMSighting map
707 sightingsPronghornMost seen around 6 AMSighting mapSighting maps show where each species has been reported across Custer. Wildlife moves, so no sighting is guaranteed.
