Wind Cave

Looking back on this blog, I realize that I haven't covered all the spots my youngest and I visited on our cross country road trip to Wisconsin the summer of 2017. With extra time on my hands at this point in time, I might as well get back to that trip and let you know about spots we visited on the way to Wisconsin as well as spots visited on the return trip. When I last wrote about this trip, it was July last year and I wrote about Mt. Rushmore. Right after that I ended up taking an extended camping trip to Utah, Idaho and Nevada, so I got caught up in that trip. Since I've covered that trip pretty extensively on this blog, it's time to revisit the 2017 trip.

Following our quick two hour visit to Mt. Rushmore, we headed south into Custer State Park and then into Wind Cave National Park. The two parks boast broad sweeping vistas, bison herds, but Wind Cave also has an underground cavern that's open for tours. We ended up driving through the state park in order to get to the national park. If you look at the first photo, you'll see there's a fence at the border between the two parks. Most animals can either burrow under the fence or hop over the fence so animal movement is not really impaired with the exception of the bison herds. There's a reason for this fence and that's to keep the two herds in the parks separate.

The bison herd in Wind Cave is a genetically pure strain of bison. Most bison in the United States, are genetically mixed with cattle. The herd in Yellowstone National Park and the one in Wind Cave are genetically pure, so it's advantageous to keep the strain a pure strain for the future of the overall species. This is why there's a fence around the entire Wind Cave park. The bison herds in Custer State Park, are not genetically pure and the National Park Service wants to keep the two herds separate for reasons explained above. The entire herd in Wind Cave are direct descendants from Yellowstone bison that had been captured in 1800s and then bred in the Brooklyn Zoo in New York. The herds in this area had been pretty much wiped out during the late 1800s, and when the park was created, offspring from the Brooklyn Zoo bison were reintroduced into Wind Cave National Park. Every year after calving, the herd is rounded up and culled, with some of the offspring sent to other areas in order to keep a genetically diverse line of bison. The photo of the bison was actually taken in Custer State Park as we didn't see any of the Wind Cave herd while we were there, so I'm actually glad that we ended up taking the scenic route through Custer.

Once inside the national park, we headed to the visitors center and purchased tickets to take one of the tours that were offered that afternoon. The cave is composed of over 100 miles of passageways, 3000 different chambers, the largest of which is larger than the largest room in Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Cave popcorn, frostwork and box-work are the main types of formations in this cave, giving it a much different feel than many of the more traditional caverns like Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns. There aren't nearly as many imposing structures like you would see in other caves, but each cave is unique in its own right and it's one of the reasons I enjoy exploring caves - the differences that make each one unique.

I had been here once when I was a teenager and the main thing I remember of this cave was the Post Office, a formation of calcite that created something that looked literally like a set of post office boxes. You can see something similar to that in the last photo.

Following our tour of the cave, we came back out and encountered a gathering thunderstorm, which meant that our planned hike above ground would have to be curtailed and we decided to get back in the Jeep and head back to Rapid City where we would be spending the night. Nothing like driving through a torrential rain storm with thunder and lightning all around and hail falling down. Fortunately, it wasn't a really violent storm, so the hail stones were small and didn't dent the car.

In the coming weeks, I intend to continue with this series, taking you to Badlands National Park, the Gateway arch in St. Louis, the Buddy Holly memorial in Iowa, and three different presidential libraries. Thanks for stopping by.