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The other day I stumbled across this animated video of the proposed biking and hiking trail system on M Hill in Rapid City. As you know, the hill, also known as Cowboy Hill, has been set aside as a 240-acre park for mountain bikers and hikers.

On one side, you can see Rapid Creek, and on another side you can see West Boulevard.

About the only real step that has been taken is to set it aside, but given its location in the heart of fast-developing Rapid City, that’s a very important step. Longer term plans call for creation of a system of trails of varying difficulty – kind of like a ski area.

That’s where this video comes it. I think the folks at the city Parks & Recreation Department gave this to me. I filed it away and forgot about it. The various colors of the trails represent the degrees of difficulty.

Cowboy Hill  was private property for years — but that didn’t stop people from climbing up its slopes for a view of the city or plying the deer trails that criss-cross the property.

But last year, a private foundation purchased much of Cowboy Hill, also known as M Hill, for creation of a wilderness park. Now, the foundation, the city of Rapid City and area mountain bike groups are turning the hill into a low-impact wildland hiking and biking park.

Last May, Cowboy Hills hosted the first-ever Black Hills Fat Tire Festival. The 2009 festival, by the way, starts May 23 to May 26.

The new park connects with the city’s existing 12-mile bike path system, a paved trail that runs along the greenway created after the 1972 Rapid City flash flood, which killed 238 people and changed the complexion of Rapid City forever.

Eventually Cowboy Hill and the bike path system will connect with another wild area within the city limits of Rapid City. The 150-acre Skyline Drive Wilderness, the other hogback ridge that divides the city, was donated to the city in early 2007.