The Wandering Hart

First thing in the morning (by which I mean 8:30AM) we went over to the Wind Cave National Park Visitor Center to check in for our cave tour. Wind Cave has several different options for paid guided tours of the cave through the National Park Service and this is the only way you can tour the cave at all. We picked the Fairground tour, which is one of the longer options and listed as “strenuous” because it involves 450 stairs, and loved it. I didn’t find it strenuous at all although anyone who struggles with stairs may want to consider a shorter option. The group took the path very slowly and the stairs were broken up across different parts of the trail.

Wind Cave is the 3rd longest cave in the country based on mapped mileage and they believe less than 10% of it has actually been mapped! The cave is particularly notable for a feature called boxwork and this cave contains 95% of the known boxwork in the world. The ranger giving our did a great job giving an overview of facts like those, the history of the cave, and details about the features of the cave. I found the cave itself to be really impressive and, even though this is one of the smaller national parks I’ve been to, I would say it’s worth a stop and making a reservation if you’re heading to the Black Hills and Badlands area.

Speaking of the Badlands, that was our next stop and 4th national park of the trip. One thing I noticed about Badlands National Park soon after arriving is that it seems more focused on driving through than hiking. We spent most of our time in the park driving the main road and stopping at scenic overlooks, especially since the most recommended hikes were either boardwalked/short or were super long. After doing the very short 1.2 mile Notch Trail, though, I can see why hiking may not be the main attraction most of the year! It was extremely hot and dry so honestly after seeing Notch Trail (a 1.2 mile trail out and back including a short ladder to walk among the rock formations), Window Trail (a short boardwalk to a viewpoint), and Door Trail (a short boardwalk to a viewpoint with an option to extend beyond the boardwalk briefly), we didn’t really want to be outside much longer. We did get some great shorts of the rock formations though!

After freshening up from our overly hot hike we finished the day with a stop at Wall Drug. Wall Drug is more of a small Western-themed mall than a drug store (although it does contain and I believe started as a drugstore). It became famous for its billboard ads going out hundreds of miles along the highway. The stop wasn’t particularly exciting but it had some cute Western-themed photo opportunities and $0.05 coffee – not too bad for a quick stop but don’t expect to spend a long time here.

Travel Log posts are my version of a travel diary so I can record what my latest adventures were and anyone interested can follow along live.