Caves and Towers

2018-09-06
Wind Cave National Park (SD) and Devils Tower (WY)

Waking up in Rushmore just made me feel touristy so I was itching to hit the road. I called an audible and toured through Custer State Park on my way south to Wind Cave. If you are not a fan of blind curves and one-lane tunnels, perhaps you should avoid this road. But it was a very pretty park, with lots of mountains and a coniferous cover. There was plenty of disinterested wildlife as well, including my first turkeys for this trip as well as the usual buffalo and deer and small mammals.

I found Wind Cave and picked up tickets for the next tour which was at 10:30. That gave me time to go take a picture with the park sign. I do this at all the parks, and it's a relatively involved process with tripods and posing whoever is with me and so forth. I backtracked to where I saw a sign, but when I got there I noticed that it would require me shooting into the sun. So I actually drove all the way through the park and took pictures with the sign on the other side. In my defense, the road is a bit windy so I wasn't sure where the sun would be. Although arguably I should've taken a couple at the bad end just in case the other sign was under construction or something...

I found wind cave fascinating. The original cave discovery was just this one little blowhole, about the size you could get your head stuck in. They eventually had to blast in a real entry, and the CCC paved out some paths and stairs in there. The boxwork is relatively unique and quite fascinating. The tour was about 1.5 hours, 300 stairs, and maybe a mile horizontal, and ended with an elevator ride 200 feet to the surface. I really was expecting us to take stairs back up, but then I also think skiing would be a more athletic sport if they walked up the mountain.

A special shout-out to Natalie wherever she may be. She was my partner on the tour (marching two by two), and also a kindred cross-country solo driver although she's been at it for a while longer than me.

Leaving Wind Cave I headed to Devils Tower. I drove right past Jewel Cave, but they are real sticklers about not wearing the same clothes you wore in another cave or even carrying the same gear. I respect their endeavor to protect their bats from white nose syndrome, but I wasn't going to tour without my camera so I waved and continued on to Wyoming.

Devils Tower is pretty cool for what it is. It's a bit like Rushmore as a one-trick pony, but there were some nice hiking trails so I got in three miles on the Red Bed trail. I walked much of the trail thinking that it was a mistake; the views of the tower were obscured by trees or hills or coming out of the sun like a gunslinger who wants to get an edge. However in the last half a mile or so the terrain and foliage opened up for a couple nice views. The heat really killed me on this trail though, with the last mile or so being both uphill and in full 80+ degree sun. It was quite a slog. That was enough for today so I bedded down at the campground after one last attempt to get some sunset pictures. A big cloud had moved in so that didn't happen, but that's an excuse to come back.

Hiking Distance: 4.5 miles