We drove out to Wind Cave to see if we could pick up their Natural Entrance Cave Tours. We got there in the nick of time to join their 10:30 a.m. tour. We had a very entertaining Ranger guiding the tour named Sam.
In 1903, Wind Cave became the first cave anywhere in the world to become a national park. The cave was named Wind Cave as the wind has been clocked coming out of the original cave entrance (a small opening) at 70 miles an hour. When the weather is cold and grey outside, the cave breathes in. When the weather is sunny and warm, the cave breathes out.
An interesting bit of information is that the Civilian Conservation Corp built the roads and trails and installed the first lighting system in the cave. The pictures of how they transported concrete is amazing and the Park Rangers use the same method today as there is no easy way unless you want to destroy the cave in the process.
Most of us think of stalactites and stalagmites when we think if caves. Wind Cave has none of those. "The cave is well known for its outstanding display of boxwork, an unusual cave formation composed of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs." One of the fascinating things about this cave is that there are tunnels that lead out everywhere. It is supposedly the second largest underground cave. On this tour, you walk down 150 steps and if you are over 5'2", you will spend a good amount of time bending down so you don't whack your head. Luckily, that was never a problem for me (finally, a benefit to being short!). Some of the passageways were narrow and you had to be careful not to touch the walls or let your clothing touch the walls. We have no pictures to share as we didn't take the camera figuring they wouldn't allow pictures . . . we were wrong. If you would like to see some pictures of boxwork here is a link Wind Cave pictures from Wind Cave's website.
When we left Wind Cave and headed home, we got in one heck of a downpour. There must have been a couple of inches of water on the roadway and our wipers (at high speed) couldn't keep up. That was something!
An interesting bit of information is that the Civilian Conservation Corp built the roads and trails and installed the first lighting system in the cave. The pictures of how they transported concrete is amazing and the Park Rangers use the same method today as there is no easy way unless you want to destroy the cave in the process.
Most of us think of stalactites and stalagmites when we think if caves. Wind Cave has none of those. "The cave is well known for its outstanding display of boxwork, an unusual cave formation composed of thin calcite fins resembling honeycombs." One of the fascinating things about this cave is that there are tunnels that lead out everywhere. It is supposedly the second largest underground cave. On this tour, you walk down 150 steps and if you are over 5'2", you will spend a good amount of time bending down so you don't whack your head. Luckily, that was never a problem for me (finally, a benefit to being short!). Some of the passageways were narrow and you had to be careful not to touch the walls or let your clothing touch the walls. We have no pictures to share as we didn't take the camera figuring they wouldn't allow pictures . . . we were wrong. If you would like to see some pictures of boxwork here is a link Wind Cave pictures from Wind Cave's website.
When we left Wind Cave and headed home, we got in one heck of a downpour. There must have been a couple of inches of water on the roadway and our wipers (at high speed) couldn't keep up. That was something!
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