I would be willing to bet that the average outdoors-person would name National parks for quite a while before they came up with Wind Cave. This park is definitely the unloved cousin of the national park system, passed over for the nearby monuments like Mount Rushmore and Devil’s Tower.

But one of the reasons for choosing this region for a trip was to mark off this park on my quest to visit all the parks in the system.

Wind Cave national park is known for two things – bison and the cave. My goal was to experience both and I was very successful.

My original plan had been to visit Wind Cave later in my trip. I’m not really sure where that plan came from, but I had booked a tour and everything. As I spent a week in Custer I realized I was only a short drive from the park and the week ahead would be much hotter than I had anticipated – highs in the mid-90s. Wind Cave is not very dog friendly. I would not be able to take Blue with me as I explored. But the campground in the park did not offer electricity so I could not leave Blue in the trailer if I camped there. It made much more sense to explore the park from my base in Custer where Blue could recoup from previous busy days in luxurious air conditioning.

As soon as I entered the park, I was happy to see a bison fairly close to the road. I pulled into a parking area and watched. It was far from my last bison of the trip, but every encounter with these huge beasts is amazing. I enjoyed my coffee as the bull sauntered closer to my truck.

I read online that tickets for the cave tours can sell out early, so I made sure to book online for my original itinerary. When I changed plans, I was disappointed to see that tickets were sold out. When I showed up at the Visitor Center I was very pleased to get a ticket for a tour only a little over an hour in advance. There do appear to be tickets reserved for walk-ins and I was very lucky that when I arrived before 9am it was an easy process. About an hour later, the line was very long, so I would still probably recommend pre-booking if possible.

Wind Cave is named such because it is a barometric cave, meaning air flows in and out of it in accordance with relative barometric pressures. Coming from the massive system caves that is Mammoth Cave, I was most surprised to learn about the limited and small entrances. Nearly every sinkhole at Mammoth is another possible entrance and the main entrance is large enough to host a small aircraft while the natural entrance at Wind Cave is no more than a few feet in diameter. Fortunately (?), early explorers had dynamite and created an entrance and door we were able to easily pass through without crawling. Because this is a barometric cave, the entrance is actually air tight as modern scientists continue to study the air flow of the cave in attempts to estimate the size of undiscovered passages.

The Wind Cave tour involves a lot of winding through passages. There are far fewer large rooms that allow for congregation and therefore interpretation from the rangers is more piecemeal than in other national park caves. But the extensive box work is fairly unique to the cave and was neat to see. All in all, definitely worth the tour.

I really wanted to explore some of the dirt roads of the park to look for Burrowing Owls. On the way out, I neared the town of Hot Springs and remembered a review for a bakery in the town that made excellent sweets. Definitely was worth the detour and I was well-stocked on cinnamon buns and cookies on my trip through the prairie.

The dirt road that travels the east side of the park was spectacular. It traverses a different geological area than much of the Black Hills and it was tremendously beautiful. I was on a wild owl chase and knew to scan prairie dog towns for the birds. I was shocked to find one at my first prairie dog town. I was able to watch him for quite a while as he surveyed the area and flew from hill to hill. He was a bit too far away for great pictures, but he was super-fun to watch

I saw a few other birds along the way, but mostly enjoyed the sweeping views. Nearing the end, I was excited to see a large herd of bison in the distance. I was even more excited when I realized the road would bring me right through them. I sat and watched the massive beasts from the safety of the truck. They are truly prehistoric. The ranger shared a Lakota tale that the earliest people lived in Wind Cave while the creator readied the world for them. A few people were tricked into exiting the cave early and were thrilled with the lush abundance of the summer, but woefully unprepared for winter. The Creator took pity on them and while they would not be able to re-enter the cave they were given thick skins and taught where all the best food was. When the rest of the people were let out of the cave they were told to follow these bison creatures as they were family and would lead the people to places with good food and water. It is not hard to imagine these beast as enchanted.