Wind Cave National Park

The plan was to loiter in the Black Hills for a few weeks and take our time to see all the sights. Unfortunately, family matters have once again changed our plans. We need to get back to an International Airport for Kerri to fly back to California in early August our timeline just shortened up a bit along with Colorado making back on the itinerary. Before leaving the Black Hills we dropped in to Wind Cave National Park (my 78th National Park visited) for a quick visit and tour.

Another cave? That’s a big 10-4 bandit! The Black Hills have two cave-parks, separated by only 18 miles as the crows flys. We actually passed through Wind Cave National Park to get up to Custer the week prior and return only with a few short hours before driving off towards Badlands National Park a hundred miles to the East. This was not the plan of course, and neither was the lower back pain that I woke up with this morning either… so I begged (and may have cried a little too) for he shorter of the three cave tours. I admit, the back pain was not the only reason I wanted the shorter tour, but also the fact that we were just in a cave days prior and these tours are somewhat of a bore, moving at the pace of the slowest person (no child left behind!).

You would think that all caves are similar, but Wind Cave was very different to it’s nearby sibling Jewel Cave. Here the rock was worn smooth by water leaving it hanging – almost levitating (pictured above) – in odd formations from the ceiling. The “boxwork” (box-like formation of rock pictured below) is second to none. In fact the Ranger went on to explain that 95% of the world’s boxwork is found in this one cave.

The 45-minute 1/4 mile tour was about all I could handle, and although we only got to see a sample of the cave itself, I’m happy we got to see any at all. I do regret not being able to spend more time in this park. The park consists of not only a large cave but a huge expanse of prairie above with all the wildlife to go with it, including some huge herds of buffalo. Maybe if I am back in the Black Hills again some time in the future I will return, hopefully without a back ache, and go see the prairie side of this park.