We drove down to Hot Springs and had lunch and then drove into Wind Cave National Park for a tour. Here we are gathered for the tour of the cave.
Marvin was our tour ranger. He is showing us the natural entrance to Wind Cave:
This is the natural entrance.
We took a different entrance.
Wind Cave is huge and they estimate only about 5% of it has been explored. It is most famous for having a great amount of box work. This is box work:
Box work is very rare in caves, but fairly plentiful in Wind Cave. What Wind Cave does not have is the normal cave formations like flowstone, stalagmites, etc. But it is a cave with water and is very interesting.
This is cave popcorn:
We were glad to visit Wind Cave. During our 1997 trip we had not made it here so were glad to finally see the place. The national park is also just south of Custer State Park and shares much of the same wildlife and has been a place for pronghorn, elk and buffalo to recover and thrive.