Wind Cave National Park

Wind Cave was the first National Park to protect a cave in 1903, I think. It is the fourth longest cave in the world at 127 miles and the cave holds 90% of the worlds Boxwork which is a limestone formation, pictured above. Wind Cave got its name due to the extreme pressure changes that makes the cave inhale and exhale at the cave's natural entrance. This was my first cave tour so I was pretty excited, but my flash for whatever reason didn't work down in the cave, so please forgive the crudeness of the picture quality. But the ranger talked mostly about the history of people exploring Wind Cave. He wanted to show us how the first explorers saw the cave, so he turned off all the cave lights and then this kid freaked out because how dark it was. At lest when I gave a planetarium program I gave everyone a heads up and even then it wasn't completely pitch black. But the most interesting formations in the cave was the boxwork, and cave popcorn. Wind Cave is different from any other cave and we have the Black Hills to thank for that, so the lack of variety of formations, gives way to the abundance of Limestone Boxwork. But Wind Cave above ground is just as pretty as below. The National Park Service has to protect the conditions above ground to preserve the cave below. Change in vegetation for example would alter the amount of water entering into the cave, and the same formations would not occur.

The next day however I was very disappointed with Jewel Cave the second largest cave in the world. I drove all the way there and arrived at 10AM and there wasn't a cave tour until 2PM. I was going to wait around but the ranger said they won’t give the tour unless there are two visitors to go on it, so I left. I was disappointed because the cave has beautiful rare formations, oh well I guess I'll just have to go back another time.