Wake Up and Smell the Pinene
When you first arrive in the Black Hills or when you awake on a summer morning, an extremely pleasant smell washes over you. It smells like pine trees that have been baking in the sun. And it’s because of the abundant pine (and spruce) trees that spend all day, well, getting baked by the sun.
And of all the many intoxicating smells that the Black Hills has to offer—fresh cut grass, lavender, diesel exhaust—that pine bouquet is the most alluring.
The fragrance has a name: pinene. More specifically, beta pinene. Pinene is a terpene, which is a classification for a number of chemicals that act as basic components in organic compounds such as natural rubber. Alpha pinene is an ingredient of turpentine, for example
The aroma of beta pinene, often used in fragrances, has a soothing and therapeutic—some say euphoric—effect. It’s no wonder that pine is such a common scent in cleaning products, even if those offer a poor imitation of the real thing. Other plants that contain pinene are rosemary, dill, and basil.
Pine is just one of those smells that’s so ubiquitous around the Black Hills that it’s easy to fail to notice it at all. Returning to the area after spending time away brings that lovely pine smell into sharp focus. My family and I spent the COVID-19 pandemic staying with family in the Black Hills. We drove all the way from Southern California, and when we started driving the home stretch coming from Newcastle, Wyoming and down through what is known as Ice Box Canyon, that familiar, yet somehow novel pine smell was like a caress on an aching cheek. I felt as though I was floating in a dream. It’s a feeling that carried me through the pandemic and right back to the Black Hills afterward.
It is said that smell is the sense most tied to memory, so when you come here, don’t forget to take a moment to inhale the pinene and let the Black Hills make its joyful imprint on your soul.
What's Good, Black Hills? 
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