On our final day in the Rapid City area we drove to the nearby (well, about 1hr 20) ‘Wind Cave National Park’. As the name suggests, this is primarily a large cave complex which you can tour, designated a National Park area with various hikes up on the surface as well.

We were a little worried about being able to get tickets to the cave tours as apparently they sell out very quickly after the visitor centre opens at 8am, so that meant a very early start, getting up at 6am and trying to get out by about 6.30am so we could get there for opening. We managed that just about, although there was already a big queue for tickets, so it was a somewhat stressful wait while we waited in line, hoping they’d still have tickets available when we got to the front.

Thankfully, they did and we booked on to the 10.30am ‘Natural Entrance Tour’, a 75 minute tour through the caves in a group of 40 people. We had a couple of hours to fill so we went to do a couple of the shorter hikes nearby, which pass through valleys and prairie land. Another different scenery compared with other parks we’ve been to on this trip. There are loads of prairie dogs scurrying around, digging holes and generally making a noise. It was like the arcade game “whack-a-mole” where you have to guess which mound they are going to appear out of.

It was really interesting to descend down in to the caves and hear about the history of the park, how the caves were discovered and converted into a tourist attraction, and about the geology of the area (well, I enjoyed that part anyway!) They had these (unique to these caves I think he said) “box” features on the ceiling that you can see above and something called “cave popcorn” which looks like popcorn on the wall.

We won’t bore you with endless photos of rocks and a cave, so there’s just a few we took down there. When we returned to the surface, we watched a short 18 minute film at the visitor centre about the park, and then ventured out to do several other hikes, including a longer 5 mile loop across the parries.

To finish up we drove up to the highest point in the park where there’s a shortish 2 mile hike taking you up to the summit, and an old fire tower – sadly you can’t go up this any more. But we had great views out over the park and in to the surrounding area.

We are moving on today rom Rapid City to our final stop in Cheyenne, so we’ll post up again soon. Keep the comments coming!

Si