We were plunged into total darkness. Initially it felt as if the pitch black was deadening all of our senses. I first began to hear the faint rustling and murmuring of the other visitors. Then, slowly, my eyes began to adjust, but it was still too dark to see anything — except for the faint glow of someone's smartphone nearby.
Twenty-first-century technology trumps 19th-century geological discovery!
We were gathered deep within Wind Cave in Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, just south of Rapid City. While this is a lesser known national park, Wind Cave is a popular tourist destination.
I like caves. They are dim, cool, slightly wet, quiet and full of unique geological formations you will find nowhere else. I've visited several before this trip and this one did not disappoint.
The drive to Wind Cave through the park was full of the same wildlife we saw in other parts of the Black Hills, including bison, pronghorn and mule deer.
Wind Cave was discovered in the 1880s when two brothers heard wind whistling from a hole in the ground, hence its name. Soon, someone decided to explore what was down there. However, long before that it was considered a sacred Lakota site.
The cave tours are popular. But there are several different tours of various lengths and difficulties so we didn't have to wait very long to get on one — less than an hour in the middle of the day in September. In the meantime, we explored the visitor center, which told the story of how the cave was discovered and how it's been used through the years.
My mother and I joined the Garden of Eden tour, an easy one-hour, ⅓-mile trek, which generally covered the upper areas of the cave. There are also tours which take visitors through the middle of the caves, through the caves by candlelight, and one that involves some crawling through the caves. All tours are ranger-guided; our tour leader was Ranger Celeste.
