Ashu had to leave the following morning, so we did laundry and then parted ways - Ashu for Iowa City and I for Wind Cave National Park.
Boxwork formation in the Wind Cave.
I arrived at Wind Cave National Park and signed up for a tour. Wind Cave was interesting for a couple key reasons. Firstly, its a dry cave, and was carved by wind erosion, as opposed to water erosion. As a result, it's famous for a very particular type of cave formation called boxwork. Secondly, its massive, with over 150 miles of mapped caverns and more being charted every day. Based on measurements done using airflow, only 5% of the cave has been mapped! While the cave formations were no where near as spectacular as Lehman Caves in Great Basin NP, this cave more than made up for that with its sheer complexity. The cave felt like a rabbit warren - sometimes we’d cross bottomless pits on narrow walkways, other times we’d trip down hundreds of stairs through cramped tunnels while other dimly lit passages forked off all around us.
More boxwork in the Wind Cave.
How incredible it must be to explore the deepest reaches of that cave as part of their research team!
I followed up my excursion to Wind Cave with a trip to Sturgis, SD, home of the world famous motorcycle rally. The rally isn’t for another month, but I was hoping to catch the tail end of a Camaro rally that was taking place that weekend. Unfortunately, I showed up just as the rally wound down, so I grabbed some food, drove through the deserted downtown, and then headed back into the Black Hills to camp on some National Forest land for the night.
The following morning, I headed out to the famous wild west town of Deadwood. The town was made even more famous by the HBO show of the same name, but it doesn’t retain any of its old wild west authenticity. It was incredibly touristy and filled with casinos, motels, and steakhouses with neon signs. I left as soon as I could.
*Apologies for the limited photos in this post!