After a scenic mountain road through the black hills that gave Lisa sweaty palms we found ourselves in Custer, South Dakota where we got HUGE sandwiches at a bakery. On the way out we saw that the bakery was the site of a saloon in the 19th century where a man was shot. We didn’t want to take our chances any longer and hopped in the car.
Wind Cave National Park was our destination and was located about twenty miles southeast of Custer. Since it was relatively late, we made a beeline for the cave tours. We got tickets for the 4:20 Fairgrounds tour and in the meantime, went to reserve our campsite next door and change into warmer clothes (the cave is at 53 degrees all year long).
The cave tour took us through narrow passageways and featured mostly smooth surfaces and small holes connecting the tapered rooms. The cave was formed during the uplift of the black hills by acidic water entering limestone through cracks in the Earth. The water then slowly eroded the rooms and left intricate boxwork (a type of calcite deposit that represents the negative impression of the cracks in the limestone). We both managed to survive the hour and thirty minutes without hitting our head.
Here is a picture of boxwork (the formations for which wind cave is best known):
We went back to our campsite intending to make supper but noticed some black clouds heading directly for us. We scrambled to quickly get everything in the car and played gin rummy. The storm didn’t pass quickly, so we ended up falling asleep before we could make dinner (neither of us were that hungry anyway because of the aforementioned huge sandwiches).
The weather was much better the next morning and we headed towards the Rankin Ridge trail which overlooks a portion of the prairie and mountain sections of the park. Lisa pulled the car over at every prairie dog town to take pictures. When we got to the entrance to the trail there were about eight bison blocking the road. We enjoyed watching the wildlife and turned into the trail about ten minutes later.
The panoramic view from the fire tower was gorgeous.
We headed back towards the visitor center because we hadn’t yet felt the wind coming from the natural entrance to the cave. Following the path led us to a small hole in the ground with a cool breeze coming out (the wind is caused by the variation in barometric pressure from the vast cave and the outside air). It wasn’t blasting out of the hole today, but it was certainly noticeable.
On our way out we again went through Custer to get a view of the Crazy Horse monument which is in progress. It is being carved into the top of a mountain and the head is finished but eventually the long section in front will be his horse.
This afternoon we headed to Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming (new state for me!). It is a sacred spot to many Native-American tribes and is also a geologic oddity. Devils Tower is some sort of igneous intrusion that was initally over a mile underground. Over time the soft sedimentary depositions eroded away and exposed the tower. Geologists are unsure of its original shape, but what is there today is pretty cool!
Devils Tower also reminded us of a film we saw at the Banff Mountain Film Festival in which a young guy climbed the vertical formation without any equipment or ropes. We asked the ranger about him and he said that he was probably not quite right in the head. We couldn't have said it better...
We're on our way towards Billings, Montana for the evening. Two more stops tomorrow and then Yellowstone tomorrow night!
No comments:
Post a Comment