Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave National Park is part of the southern Black Hills. It shares its northern border with Custer State Park's southern border. The number one attraction is the cave itself. Wind Cave  is considered the longest cave in the world.  It has a tunnel system over 400 miles long. Here is the crazy part, the cave itself sits one only one square mile of land. The tunnels are interconnect down to different levels the way a stair system in an office building stops at different floors. Those floors have hallways and rooms, just like but much more organized than a cave.

The cave is the main reason people go to the national park. I'd be willing to bet that at any point, there are more cars parked in the Vistor Center parking lot (where cave tours begin) than on all roads, and trailheads combined in the park.

The cave tours are very popular. There are a number of different tours to choose from. They will have you down in the cave anywhere from one hour to four hours. We chose the hour and fifteen minute Fairgrounds tour. Laurie had never been in a cave. This particualr tour covered a lot of ground so it would be nice to see. There aren't any really large stalagmites in the cave. The climate is too dry for them to form. The real cave formation is called boxwork. Ninety five percent of the boxwork in the world is in this cave. I'm glad to say, Laurie was really impressed and had a nice time.

I was looking forward to seeing the trails above ground. Wind Cave has a large ponderosa pine forest
in the northern end and a huge prairie in the south. The same animals found in Custer and the Badlands can be found here.

We did three trails. We saw a total of three people, and those people were on a trail across from the Visitor Center. The first trail we did was called Cold Brook Canyon. As the name suggests it runs
through a canyon. It also goes through a prairie dog town. When we were almost back at the car, a pronghorn was running on the trail straight at me. When I made some noise, it froze and after a minute ran off in another direction.

The trail across from the V.C. was known as Wind River Canyon Trail. We saw a buffalo just off the trail. I also saw a red headed woodpecker. The highlight of this trail were two different sets of bones. We saw some in a mud puddle and another in the meadow bleached by the sun. We took a couple pictures then left them where we found them.

Bison femur on the trail

BEST STORY FROM THE TRIP!

We had reservations for most of the nights on the trip. Like I said, the Badlands have a free campground, so we knew we had those nights covered. Two nights we did not have a place to stay. One of those nights I had planned on getting a backcountry permit to sleep in Wind Cave's backcountry. We picked our permit (free from a ranger) the day before our scheduled hike.

The next day...it rained. It poured most of the day, and worse, there was thunder and lightning. Going into the backcountry to sleep wasn't Laurie's favorite idea to do on the trip. She was willing to go, as I was to go to the "attractions" that she wanted to see. However, I couldn't ask her to risk life and death in a T-storm. So we waited it out. We went to Cabelas and had lunch. The sky started to clear around 5 pm. At 6 we headed out onto the Sanctuary Trail.

Leaving so late wasn't a big deal. It doesn't get dark until 9 pm. Also we didn't have to go far from the road. We could sleep anywhere. I was just hoping to go in about a mile or two.

About 3/4 mile from the road, as the trail was curving around a hill, and finally out of site of the road, a buffalo was walking towards us on the same trail! People are supposed to stay 100 yds from buffalo. When we saw it, we were already withing 30 yards. Our adrenaline got pumping and we over reacted. To get away from the buffalo, we went up the hill. We probably climbed 300 feet. The grass was wet. Worse, it was long, which meant we couldn't see where we were stepping (RATTLESNAKES!)

Laurie getting out of the tent. Notice the buffalo in the middle of
picture. They were close!

We climbed to the top of the hill and then came down about 90 degrees past the buffalo. Our feet were wet, I was nervous, and Laurie was scared. We kept going. Since we basically climbed a mountain to avoid the buffalo, we wasted a good forty five minutes. We crossed into a prairie dog town.

Since the sun was getting low, we started to look for a level campsite (how hard could that be in open grasslands right?)  I know that a backcountry camper should give themselves an hour to find a suitable spot, they don't just come easy. Unfortunately, we did not have the luxury of an hour. We started looking but didn't see much of anything. Finally, Laurie spotted a spot that was kind of/sort of flatish.

We considered walking out to avoid anymore bison. In the end we chose to make camp. About twenty minutes after we set up tents and sleeping bags, it was almost dark and I got to cross off one of my bucket list items. As it was just getting too dark to read, coyotes started to howl. I loved listening to that!

When we woke up, Laurie's first word was "Herd"!  A herd of about 100 buffalo arrived overnight or early in the morning. The closest ones were about 30 yards away ( remember the 100 yard rule). After a little while the herd started to drift  perpendicular to us. We decided it was safe enough to pack the tent and head back. So that's what we did.

The way back to the car (our camp ended up being about two miles in) was precarious to say the least. It seemed like around every corner there was a solitary male buffalo. At least five times we had to leave the trail and cut across country to avoid them. Now that we were experts at avoiding buffalo, we didn't run up any hills. We couldn't exactly give them a hundred yards either. Your heart starts to race when a buffalo stops eating to watch you and there is nothing between you and it.

I did find, that after a while, I started to hope buffalo were around every bend instead of hoping they weren't. Almost near the car we had to avoid a bachelor group of four huge males. All four watched us make our way past them. It was intense but an experience I will cherish forever.

After our hike when we refilled our water bottles back at the visitor center, we told the rangers to warn other hikers about how many buffalo were on that trail.

Although Laurie never actually started enjoying seeing buffalo so close, she pretty much kicked ass.

\One of the many buffalo we encountered. I wasn 't stopping
for photos of any that stopped feeding to
watch us.

She knew it was bad ass to be sleeping in the prairie, yet she still did it. Other than having soaked shoes, she never complained. Not about our sort of flat campsite, not about running up a hill to avoid a buffalo, and not when we stared four big males in the face as we walked by. for someone that isn't hardcore, she was a bad ass that day!

To put into perspective how few people get backcountry permits in Wind Cave National Park. Last year they issued 179 back country permits. That is basically one a day during the nicest six months of the year. Over two million people visit Rushmore a year only an hour away. Up to 1000 people per day will take a cave tour during the busy summer season. About 600,000 people visit the park a year, one quarter of those that visit Rushmore. Still 600,000 is a lot of people.

Of those 600,000 how many asked for a backcountry permit...179

Yellowstone issued 44,893 backcountry permits last year. Yosemite issued over 11,000 in May this year alone! So, there is no one in Wind Cave backcountry if you are looking for solitude!!!

This is how you reward yourself South Dakota style!