Wind Cave

Wind Cave National Park is the seventh national park to be add to the National Park System and is the only park that protects a cave. It was a happy accident that I decided to camp there. The camp sites were nice, especially the ones for tent camping only, which I didn't find until I set up my camp on a slight slope. (The tent sites had pads. )  But I did have trees in which to hang my hammock so I was fine.And I only had to pay six dollars a night.

Wind cave itself is unique in both Indian lore and geology.  The Black Hills are sacred to the Indians and the government once gave them to the Indians.  But after gold was discovered in them, they were taken back. Wind Cave is especially sacred to the Indians because their creation story is that the first people came out of Wind Cave. The creator made people to live under ground.  There there was no evil and everyone had enough of everything. But the trickster came and told some of them that if they came to the top of the earth, they would find lots of buffalo, and other good things. So several families came out of the cave and then found that they had been tricked but survived bad weather and poor hunting to become the first people.

And Wind Cave is unique in geology.  It has ninety-five percent of all the structures called boxwork in the world.  There is a little more of it found in caves in South Dakota and a little in Czechoslovakia. And there was never water flowing through the cave and it is and has always been very dry with just a little water seeping through it. About 400 - 500 feet below the cave are three lakes which hold the water that has seeped down through the cave. So there are no stalactites or  stalagmites and very little popcorn. And there are no cave creatures.  It is just too dry for them to get food and water.

Wind Cave is made from materials formed from a shallow sea.  It is made of limestone with masses of gypsum ( also precipitated from sea water) scattered throughout the limestone. Pressure caused cracks to occur in the limestone and the gypsum was forced into the cracks. Later the gypsum was changed to calcite when waters rich in calcium dioxide came in contact with it. Then the seas receded and fresh water came in reacted with the gypsum to form sulfuric acid.  This dissolved the limestone away, leaving only the calcite in the form of boxwork.

There are several different cave tours each day.  On the weekends, there is also a candlelight tour and a wild cave tour. Some tours are designed for people with limited mobility and use the elevators to go down and back up.  Others go through the natural entrance - actually the new one that replaced the tiny natural one - and then come back via the elevator. This is what I did on my tour.

My tour started in the little shade structure ahead

The ranger standing in the cavity by the original entrance - a hole only a couple of feet in diameter.  ( I meant to go back and get a picture of the hole but forgot to.

The ranger opening the cave - this is the new entrance

Thirty-nine people were on this trip

A view of the boxwork.

The group learning how the cave was formed

The only area which had water dripping - popcorn was forming above her hand.

A picture that shows boxwork - this was almost in every room throughout the tour.

This was a very worthwhile tour. I wished I had had time to do more tours, especially the wild cave one. But you need to make reservations to do that tour. And the cost - I think it was only $4.00 for people with the Golden Age Pass or Senior Pass. 

This camping spot was also great in that it abutted Custer State Park and was within driving range of  Hot Springs,  Crazy Horse Monument , Mt. Rushmor, Jewel Cave National Monument, The Wild Horse Sanctuary, and other interesting places. I needed maybe ten days and a couple of hundred dollars to see everything that would have interested me.

Honoring the Circle

 I heard that the Crazy Horse Memorial was having an open house over the holiday weekend and would only charge three cans of food to get it. So I made a snap decision to go there. I was so glad I did because I got to take part in a special medicine wheel and listen to a great Indian band and see wonderful dancing. This was all part of a special weekend program called Honoring the Circle, a program to honor, grandparents, children, the military and each other.

First view - This was mostly what I thought I'd see

The band was Brule led by Paul LaRoach.  He told a powerful story of his life.  After both his midwest  adoptive parents died, his wife found his adoption papers and he discovered he was Indian.  She was able to locate a brother and extended members of his family.  This was a life-changing event for him and he came back to his heritage but now works to reconcile Indians and whites. The music was wonderful and the dancers added to the interpretation.

One of the male dancers

Woman and girl dancer

 After the program ended, the audience was invited to be part of a human medicine wheel. which was done to promote peace among the races. The wheel was in the colors for north, south, east, and west with elders and chiefs standing at each compass point. The four drummers all played on one large drum with some extra singers joining them. The visitors filled up the outer circumference of the circle. The head chief lead a prayer to the god above and the god below. Then we shuffled around about a quarter of a turn to the beat of the drums.  It was a moving experience.

The memorial itself was awesome. This, when finished, will be the largest memorial in the world at 641 feet long and 563 feet high. This size is hard to imagine.  In the introductory movie, they superimposed the Mt. Rushmore monument and all four of the president's heads fit inside Crazy Horse's head and hair. And this is being carved in the round, using precision dynamiting to remove millions of tons - about 700 tons in each blast. Since 1998, when the head was unveiled, in 1998.  (This work had been in progress for 50 years. Currently the horse's head is being carved. To see pictures of the process and learn more about it, click here. The most amazing thing about this memorial is that it has all been done privately. Lakota Chief Henry Standing Bear invited sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to build a memorial that would help tell the story of the Indians. Ziolkowski ended up dedicating the rest of his life to this project. He married Ruth, a woman 18 years younger than him and had ten children, seven of whom still work on the carving. He was self-taught and taught his entire family how to carve the mountain.  His widow not supervises the visitor center and the carving. The story of how this family has dedicated two generations to both carve the monument and raise money to do so was very moving.

Front view of the model - the measurements are multiplied 34 times to get those of the monument

Back view of the model - This carving is in the round

View from the deck between the gift store and the restaurant

The horse's head area - this is area being worked on now - since 1998

Could you even see the heavy equipment in the first picture?

Ruth Ziolkowski who manages the carving work and the visitor center - taken from movie

In addition, to the monument, there are museums of Indian artifacts, a sculpture museum, Indian artist who are at work and also selling their wares, and at least on this day, dancing and music. In the restaurant, I had a meal of buffalo stew and wonderful fry bread. The website for the memorial has lots more information as well as pictures showing the progress.

Supper - with a view of the monument

This was the best deal I found in the Black Hills - for three cans of food, I was intrigued, amazed, delighted, and had my spirit renewed. Getting my stomach filled just cost ten dollars more.

And it seemed that even the buffalo were honoring the circle last night.  When I was almost back to camp, my lights picked up a line of buffalo crossing the camp road.  I got to the line just as two animals were starting into the street.  The first one already had his front feet in the road. We all stopped. The first buffalo looked at me and went across.  The second buffalo looked at me and remained stationary, just off the road.  I was sure he was telling me it was my turn so went past him, while he patiently waited. Another special experience.

I hope I don't bore you with such frequent postings. But I still have another experience to share with you from here and by tomorrow night, I'll be experiencing the Badlands. And then there is the journey in between. So I'll try to catch up a little.  Then you'll have a break for the time I'm in the Boundary Waters. I'll try to get a couple of posts up before I rush back to Bozeman to start my Yellowstone vacation.

Roamin' with the Buffalo

Dateline: August 30. Hill city, SD

Yesterday I moved my camp to Wind Cave National Park. I'll write about it more in a later post.  I lucked out with the camping fees - only $6 with my golden age pass. (Found a lesser level campsite by the Forest Service that charges $24 a night because they are so close to Mt. Rushmore.) But mainly I've been finding views and wildlife throughout Custer State Park, the largest state park I've found.  It adjoins Wind Cave NP and I had to buy a 7 day pass for $15  just to drive through it and use various of it's day use areas. But it does  have swimming, lots of buffalo and other wildlife and fantastic views. And the north side of it is almost to Mt. Rushmore.  I also drove by Mt. Rushmore this morning but decided it wasn't worth $33 to park and visit that monument so just made two stops to take pictures.

I spent several hours yesterday and today driving throughout the two parks. Below are a few of my favorite pictures from those trips.

The first and second things that caught my eye were prairie dogs and a big buffalo herd. There are several herds in the area - Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park, and many bulls are found alone in other areas. This herd was visible as I arrived at the park. Prairie dog towns can take up several acres and attract the buffalo to the new, tender grass the prairie dogs cultivate.

Prairie dogs are an important component of prairie ecosystems - provide food and shelter to other amimals

A few of a large herd of buffalo

My afternoon drive came to a screeching halt for several minutes by buffalo who preferred the road

This calf passed my car while I was stopped by buffalo

Found this peaceful threesome at a Forest Service group camp.

This jackrabbit flew off when he saw me

 There is an apparent subspecies of buffalo that must be breeding in the town of Custer, SD.  They are very tame and allow you to approach them closely with no signs of aggression or fear. And they are much more colorful than the species.

Each buffalo was painted by a different artist and with a different theme

I think this was about buffalo hunting

I didn't read the theme of this buffalo

This buffalo was painted in a star theme

Snack time for twins

A pronghorn buck

Custer State Park has an entire magazine-sized booklet about the park. It says the burros ae descendants from the herd that once hauled visitors to the top of Harney peak. Now people bring the food and bread and pet them and they  race over to the cars. I'm hoping to spend more time with the herd because they are foaling now and I hope to get a picture of a newborn.

Panhandling donkey

 Both the National and State Parks have areas that look like this.  I think this was taken just about at the border between the two parks.

Sunset View

These next  pictures were all taken Friday morning on my way to Mt. Rushmore.  I ended up taking a very long way but had a wonderful trip.

Hole in the Wall - I checked - not a through passage

Breakfast time

One of several tiny tunnels in the area

Road View

Some of beautiful formations along Needles Highway Scenic Drive

 There is a terrible pine beetle infestation in these hills. The brown color is from dead pine trees. Every area in under an extreme fire warning. The best sign I saw about fire warnings was " Extreme fire danger - don't even fart in the woods".

View from the top of the Needles Road

Intrepid Biker

Sylvan Lake - one of several lakes in Custer Park

Finally got to see elk after looking for then for two days - this is probably less than half the herd and all very distant

And after sunset, I got a very distant and dark picture of two bucks.

This looks like a painting just before sunset

Friday's sunset over the park.

There is a lot of hiking in the Black Hills National Forest, Custer State Park, and Wind Cave National Park. I'm hoping to get to do some of that yet today and will definitely be hiking the next few days.Some of it will be underground in the 120 mile long cave. (But the trips are mostly about 1.5 miles in length.)

Ayres Natural Bridge Park

Planning for the two week vacation I'll spend alone mostly involved looking up  free camping sites along some of my proposed routes. (The actual routes I'll take will depend on what I find and how long it takes me to get from one place to another. I have two weeks to drive about 1000 miles, if I was to drive in a straight line.)  So I look up some interesting things to do, and expect to find others along the way.

One interesting place that offers free camping is Ayres Natural Bridge Park. It has one of the few natural bridges that is over a stream.

I arrived there Monday evening in time to enjoy the late afternoon sun, the many birds, and to set up camp along LaPrele Creek.  There are only eight campsites but there were no other campers besides myself so I picked the very best site, right next to the creek and just across from the bridge. The creek is very low but still makes soft water music that can only be heard when the winds are low.

My tent with a view of the bridge

I consider this bench part of my campsite

One of the many pigeons using the bluffs

One of many young flickers

View of the bridge from the day-use side

The small park is the area that is surrounded by sandstone bluffs which are vivid shades of mostly orange with some white, grey, and black mixed in. They have old nests of raptors and cliff swallows - already departed, and seem to be still hosting nesting pigeons that are serenading me with their coos. This area is has the densest population of birds I've seen. I haven't taken my binoculars out yet but have seen several thrashers, lots of spotted towhees, a spotted sandpiper, robins,  an epidtomax flycatcher family (s). This morning I heard a canyon wren call and saw a baby wren yesterday.  It was another wren species, maybe a winter wren.

Bluff along the edge of the campground

There are three dimensional carvings on some of the sandstone bluffs

This morning I got up and got everything done around the camp so I could continue taking pictures. Then I enjoyed the early morning before coming into the library at Douglass, Wyoming where I ended up spending most of the day catching up on picture editing, adding albums to Webshots, and writing a few more blogs. I'm definitely ready to go back to camp and hang my hammock and jump in it, as soon as the temperature drops down - it's 95 degrees at 6:15 P.M. I plan to stay here another day so may have to retreat to the library again tomorrow afternoon. I also hope to hike along the Platte River, on a trail here in town,  if I can get started before the heat builds up.

For more information on this park, near Douglas, Wyoming, click here.