Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota has about 150 miles of cave passageways. We visited the park one morning to explore about two miles of the 150 on a guided ranger tour.
Wind Cave is different than the other caves we’ve visited. Unlike most other caves, like those at Lewis & Clark State Park in Montana and Linville Caverns in North Carolina, Wind Cave is a dry cave. It doesn’t have the typical wet cave rock features created over millennia by dripping and running water, like stalagmites and stalactites. Instead, it has some interesting rock features called box work and cave popcorn. Shown in the pictures below.
The cave is also interesting in that it sits beneath rolling grasslands, not in a mountainside like I expect most caves. To watch the buffalo and deer grazing on the grassland, you would not expect to find hundreds of miles of hidden cave beneath.
All things considered, ff I were in western Montana and had to choose between Lewis & Clark Caverns Montana State Park and Wind Cave National Park, I would choose Lewis & Clark Caverns. The tour is longer and the cave more interesting.
Here are some of our photos from Wind Cave.
Crappy photographer disclaimer: It’s unfortunate I have no idea how to take photos in low light / near darkness. Any photo taken with a person in the frame was blurry, so the photos of the kids and Katie underground didn’t make the cut.
Hundreds of miles of cave are beneath these rolling hills.
Wilson can’t get enough of climbing on the generators and the rack on the front of the Tahoe.
Boxwork cave formation
Not sure what this is called, but I like it.
Cave popcorn cave formation
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