Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota - June 25th to 27th, 2021
Living and traveling in a camper van keeps us more in tune with the weather. Looking at the local weather forecast is part of the routine when planning our activities for an area. At Wind Cave National Park, paying attention to the weather helped us maximize our time while we were there.
It was raining when we woke up Friday morning and continued raining most of the way from Devils Tower to Elk Mountain Campground in Wind Cave National Park. We arrived before noon and had no problem finding an open camp site. After eating our lunch, we headed over to the Visitor Center to see if there were any tickets left for cave tours that day. As we were driving through the parking lot, a kind person flagged us down and asked us if we knew our bikes were swung out to the side. No we didn’t! We must have forgotten to swing the bike rack back before we left the Elk Mountain Campground, less than a mile away. At least we hadn’t driven very far yet. How could we have not noticed that? Thank goodness we didn’t hit any cyclists along the side of the road.
It was about 12:30 pm and we snagged the last two spots for the Natural Entrance Tour for 3:20 pm. That meant we had about three hours to kill. We talked with some people who said they heard people started lining up at 7 am for tickets that went on sale starting at 8 am. Then the tickets they got were for the 12:30 pm tour. So showing up later and only having to wait three hours seemed like a bargain!
For a change, Wind Cave was showing their park movie at the Visitor Center. Most of the National Parks we have been to up to this point were not showing theirs due to the pandemic. The movie lasted about twenty minutes and was well worth the time. After that we spent some time wandering around all of the exhibits inside the Visitor Center. We still had time to kill, so we walked the one mile Prairie Vista Nature Trail which was a loop that started from the Visitor Center. Along the trail we met a family from New Jersey. They were telling us that during the pandemic lockdown, they were not even allowed to go outside their home. The police were handing out fines if people were caught outside. The trails in their area were closed and blocked off. We’re so thankful that was not the case for us in Colorado. We definitely would have gotten cabin fever if we couldn’t get outside for fresh air and stretching our legs by walking around our neighborhood.
The cave tour was very interesting. The caves are a maze of over 100 miles of narrow passages that wind around in multiple layers, all contained under one square mile of the surface. The caves have some unique formations, containing 90% of the world’s known boxwork formations, along with frostwork and popcorn formations.
The only natural entrance is a small hole which “breathes”. Depending on the difference in air pressure between the caves and outside, the air will flow either into the caves or out of the caves. Sometimes it makes a whistling noise as the air is forced out through the small hole. When we were there, there was not much air movement at all at the natural entrance.
After our tour, we headed back to our camp site for dinner. We could see a herd of bison on the distant hillside from our campsite.
Since scattered thunderstorms were predicted for the Saturday afternoon, we went for a hike Saturday morning. We followed the Lookout Point Trail and Centennial Trail Loop, but in the clockwise direction. The trailhead is not well marked, but between the map and there not being very many parking areas in Wind Cave National Park, we did not have any problems finding it.
We started out on the Centennial Trail. It is a 111 mile long trail that starts in Wind Cave National Park and continues all the way up to Bear Butte State Park near Sturgis. We were only on it for about one and a half miles. The trail is in a shallow canyon, following a small stream. The peaceful sound of the trickling stream was joined by the songs of the birds in the trees and the chirping of crickets in the prairie grasses. A variety of wildflowers added dots of color to the prairie grasses. The trail crossed the stream multiple times on cute little wooden foot bridges.
Just before the trail junction with Lookout Point Trail, we could hear a waterfall, but couldn’t see one. There was a short spur trail towards the sound of the waterfall which our curiosity led us down. When we came to the bank of the stream, the other side was close to the rocky canyon wall. Then we noticed that about half of the water in the stream was flowing down a hole next to the canyon wall, disappearing underground. There must be a waterfall in the hole. How cool is that?
Lookout Point Trail ascended up over a ridge and out onto the open prairie. As the trail trespassed through a prairie dog town, the residents were barking at us. A couple of pronghorn antelope ran across the prairie in the distance in front of us. Up to this point, we had only seen a couple of other hikers on the trail. As we approached the trailhead, we passed about a dozen people on the trail. We counted this as hike #22 of our 52 Hike Challenge and #18 of our National Park Series.
The trailhead is only a couple of miles from the campground, so we headed back to our camp site for lunch and restrooms. While we were at our camp site, Left Buddy (LB) got out our collapsible ladder to check out the damage on our Red Tail Lodge roof. He had noticed a day or two earlier that our fairing was cracked. Then we scraped the roof with low hanging tree branches when we parked at the trailhead in the morning. The only damage from the trees was a bent WeBoost antenna (paid link). He was able to straighten out the antenna. Then a few pieces of gorilla tape mended the fairing. We’re not sure how the fairing was damaged. It might have been from driving 80 mph on the interstate in high winds when we were bee-lining it to Indiana the week before.
For the afternoon, we went for a scenic drive. Heading up highway 87, we stopped at Rankin Ridge and walked the one mile loop to the Lookout Tower. Visitors are not allowed to climb the Lookout Tower; however, the view from the base of the tower is pretty good. This is the highest point in Wind Cave and has nice panoramic views of the surrounding area. Thank goodness we carried our rain jackets with us, because it started raining on us as we reached the Lookout Tower. We didn’t stay long at the tower since the thunder was rumbling and standing next to a large metal structure was not the best place to be in a thunderstorm.
We continued north on highway 87 until we reached Custer State Park, which lies on the northern border of Wind Cave National Park. The state park is larger than Wind Cave and charges a fee to enter, unlike Wind Cave which only charges for the cave tours. It was $20 per vehicle for a one to seven day pass to enter Custer State Park. In return, we received a glossy magazine containing information about the park. We drove the Wildlife Loop Road which circles most of the park. The road lived up to its name. Even though we were driving in the middle of the afternoon, probably the worst time to see wildlife, we encountered pronghorn antelope, bison, wild burros, mountain goats, and, of course, prairie dogs.
It was entertaining to watch people get excited over prairie dogs. We’ve lived for several decades with prairie dogs less than a mile from our house, so we had forgotten what it was like to see them for the first time. Children seemed especially intrigued.
The burros are not native to the area, but are descendants from the ones that used to haul visitors to the top of Black Elk Peak. They also didn’t seem very wild when we saw them. They were gathered around a parking lot filled with cars, allowing people to pet them.
It’s a good thing we chose the Wildlife Loop Road instead of some of the other roads in the park, such as Needles Highway and the Iron Mountain Road, which leads over to Mount Rushmore. Both of these roads have several tunnels with height and width restrictions. Our high roof van would fit in the tunnels on Iron Mountain Road, with the smallest tunnel being 10’9” wide and 11’0” tall. But we would not fit through the tunnels on the Needles Highway. The Needles Eye Tunnel is only 8’ wide and 9’9” tall.
There are several campgrounds and lodges inside the state park along with a long list of hiking trails. We will definitely be back to Custer State Park to explore it in more depth.
Even though it was cloudy and rainy for most of our time at Wind Cave National Park, we managed to hike for several hours under blue skies and sunshine. We also didn’t let a little rain dampen our spirits. Planning around the weather and being flexible helped us enjoy Wind Cave even more.
Check out our related video: Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
(RB)