Wind Cave

From Wikipedia -Wind Cave is distinctive for its calcite fin formations called boxwork, a unique formation rarely found elsewhere, and needle-like growths called frostwork. The cave is one of the longest and most complex caves in the world. Above ground is a mixed-grass prairie with animals such as bison, black-footed ferrets, and prairie dogs, and ponderosa pine forests that are home to cougars and elk. The cave is culturally significant to the Lakota people as the site “from which Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery, sent the buffalo out into their hunting grounds.”

• Established: 01/09/1903
• Annual Visitors: 656,397
• Size: 33,971 acres

Bowman, ND to Custer, SD Oct. 2, 2020

• It’s the first day of hunting bow and rifle antelope season in the Dakotas. We spoke with several men that were at our hotel in Bowman, ND (no pun intended, but cute huh?) that were heading out with their buddies from all over the US.

• Trivia fact sharing #1: We noticed new oil wells just off the road in northwest South Dakota. Researching the active vertical drill rigs we saw, we learned that Harding County produces 98% of SD’s crude oil and natural gas.  South Dakota has “…no US Environmental Protection Agency air quality non-attainment areas, South Dakota allows the statewide use of conventional gasoline.”  (http://www.sdoil.org/) So no ethanol is required. Billions of gallons of ethanol is produced in this county but only a few hundred- million gallons are used within the state of SD.

• Trivia fact sharing #2: Sodium Bentonite which looks like white sand, can be seen along the road in the Black Hills of South and North Dakota. There is a mountain called White Butte in ND because of the high amount of Bentonite present on the top. Bentonite is excavated and used as a bonding agent, commercially, to seal cracks due to it’s expanding qualities.

• We drove through Sturgis, SD which I found fun. I am not a motorcycle owner and rider but I am always intrigued by festivals and events since my career has been in large corporate meetings and trade shows for a long time and I used to be Hospitality Coordinator for 2 weekends a year for The Tempe Festival of the Arts (in AZ) for over 5 years. Sturgis holds their Motorcycle Rally every year, on the first weekend of August including 2020, beginning with the first Sturgis Rally in 1938!

For more info: https://sturgismotorcyclerally.com and see my drive through the town pics attached in this journal.

Sturgis is also home to Fort Meade, South Dakota’s National Guard, a proud SD branch of the state’s militia since 1862. Fort Meade National Cemetery is in Sturgis and two other National cemeteries are close by. There are 42 Army and 32 Air Guard units in SD, 4,200 Solders and Airman. https://sd.ng.mil

• I am seeing a trend of stand-alone, relatively mobile, drive-through, Espresso kiosks in the towns we pass through. They are in the parking lots of other businesses like a hardware store and the like. From what I have experienced, they are staffed by young people and the coffee at each one I have stopped at is amazing. Hummmm, next family business venture??

• We checked into Chalet Motel in Custer, SD for three nights so we can experience Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park in one lodging stop. Chalet Motel is comprised of little individual cabins (about 17 all next to one another with a small parking spot between each one). It has a bit of an Alps style flare. Between the 2 queen beds and Rangeley’s crate, a small table and two chairs, we are slightly cramped in here but all the more reason to get out and see more of America! We are in walking distance to a dog park (yay!), Subway, Dakotamart grocery store, and a short walk to the main street of Custer, SD, population 1,800+ in 2018. Lots of lodging, really good restaurants: breweries, bake shops, gift shops and a clean, large laundromat that has been owned by a single family for over 22 years which we were grateful for. Best of all, one of those Drive tru/walk up Espresso huts right next door!

• See pics of Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse in this journal. We are visiting Wind Cave NP and Custer State Park tomorrow!

Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park – October 3, 2020

We got a geocache for SD on the foot/bike path on the way to the dog park this morning in Custer. It was clever but I had seen these before…a silver electrical plate with magnets attached to it adhered to a large city electrical box. I enjoy searching for the, sometimes tiny to large ammo box size, caches all over the world. Gary looks up the coordinates, online, on his Geocaching.com account, and we find new and fun places to go searching for the mint containers to shoebox size containers hidden in trees, under rocks and under benches. We prefer the remote caches vs. searching for many in cities. Just like this adventure, it’s the searching/journey that is the most fun, not just the final destination/location.

We headed to the 34,000-acre Wind Cave NP established in 1903. That is the year my grandmother was married. I wear her wedding ring as my own and had it engraved – 1903 &, 1986 – which was my wedding year. My mom had me when she was older and her mom had her later in life so, yes, it was my grand, not great grandmother’s wedding date in 1903.

There is no formal ranger staffed entrance booth where we usually show our ID and Annual Park Pass. We drove to the visitor center where the ranger answered questions outside at a table because the museum/visitor information building is closed but the gift shop was open. We picked up a map of the park, a newsletter of this year’s happenings, we asked about the two dog friendly hikes and bought our traditional post card, and pin for our map of the parks at home. We place a pin in each park we have visited on the 2’X 3’ map. I will have to place 27 pins in that map all at once when we get home!

Wind Cave borders Custer State Park so we decided to do both today. Wind Cave has a lot of Prairie Dogs and I have not gotten tired of watching them! Their holes are all over the plains of the Black Hills in Wind Cave, thousands of them! See pic.

Wind Cave’s cave tours have been shut down since June of 2019! They say it’s an elevator malfunction, a part shortage, but that seems crazy to not be able to fix it in 16 mos.? We also looked into Jewel Cave National Monument…same shut down, same reason, and they do not allow dogs in their park at all, so we skipped that one. Gary would also have really enjoyed the cavernous walks, climbs and belly shimming tours in all of these closed National Park caves. We aare crossing our fingers that Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave might be accessible for him to go through when we arrive.

Side note: Devils Tower would have been a long “out of the way” drive on our journey and Gary really wanted to see it but with 4000 miles already under our belt and we’re only half way done, we decided it would need to be on another adventure list.

We explored the 1-mile Prairie Vista Trail, close to Wind Cave NP visitor center, with Rangeley. It is short walk upward to a grassy ridge with pretty views of the Black Hills National Forest surrounding the NP. The walk also passes the Natural Entrance to one of the cave tours but there’s not much to see on the surface. We took a pic of the information sign depicting the 150 miles of underground tunnels and caves under the hike we were doing! See attached.

We drove north thru WCNP to get to Custer State Park’s south entrance. Their visitor center is in the northeastern side of the park so we took the drive across the park eastward. The visitor center now stands where Custer State Park Zoo used to be in 1923. Ironically a guy named Doolittle managed the park for 30 years. 400,00 visitors came annually until the zoo closed in the 1970’s.

We were glad to catch site of several Bighorn Sheep moms and babes. See pictures. We also saw Pronghorn, commonly called antelope.

There’s usually hundreds of buffalo (casual term) also called bison (scientific, more formal term) in Custer State Park but the park just had their annual round up on September 25, 2020 corralling them on the Wildlife Loop Road inside the park. Twenty volunteer horseback riders who win a spot in the round up by lottery, ride their own horses, joining experienced round up crews to rustle up the animals for counting; branding and vaccinating the calves; and doing medical assessments and treatments. The lucky 20 volunteers cannot join the round up again for another 3 years. To manage the herd, some bison are sold and the rest released. A total of 1,300 head were rounded up this year. In 1890 there were only 500 in the USA. Private ranchers, including Theodore Roosevelt, strived to start a come back of the buffalo. In 1912, 4000 acres in Wind Cave NP were set aside for the majestic beasts to grow, breed and be healthy. Hence, both parks now have an abundance of bison and are managed and cared for by many private, corporate and governmental groups.

The weather has been chilly, high 56, low’s in the 30’s with frost again this AM. It’s been too cold to encourage Rangeley to swim in streams and lakes lately…although he wants to go in even if he shivers like crazy coming out.

We took a day off today, Sunday Oct. 4, 2020 and head to Badlands National Park tomorrow!