A visit to Wind Cave National Park near Hot Springs, South Dakota wouldn't be complete without a cave tour. Since a family member deals with claustrophobia, we chose the tour with the shortest amount of time underground. The Garden of Eden tour lasts for one hour, enters and exits the cave by elevator, and covers 1/3 mile of the trail system in the cave. It also has 150 steps.
With over 140 miles of surveyed passages, Wind Cave is the seventh longest cave in the world. The cave is a three-dimensional maze as all 140 miles of passages are contained within a 1.1 by 1.3 mile rectangular area on the surface. Using the barometric pressure differential between different locations in the cave and the surface and the air volume flowing through specific passages, scientists have determined that only about 5% of the volume of the cave has been discovered. The deepest surveyed point in the cave is 654 feet below the highest point in the cave. The Elevator Building is 4059 feet above sea level. The Garden of Eden level is 119 feet below the Elevator Building, but the Assembly Room (reached by another tour) is 196 feet below.
The young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps rebuilt and expanded the trails in the cave by carrying concrete in inner tubes slung around their necks into the cave where it was used to surface the trail and build the numerous stairs along the tour routes. They also sunk the 208 foot elevator shaft into the cave and strung miles of electric cable to provide indirect lighting along the tour routes.
A ranger led the tour of about 30 people. Two trips were required on the elevator to get us all into the elevator lobby deep in the cave. Once we were all there, the ranger described how the changing barometric pressure on the surface causes the wind to blow in or out of the cave. He then opened the door into the cave and we experienced the wind blowing into the lobby and up the elevator shaft. The highest wind speeds recorded were greater than 75 miles per hour at the Walk-In Entrance before a revolving door was installed. Luckily, the wind speed when we left the airlock was just a gentle breeze.
The tour surface is concrete with numerous concrete steps. Stainless steel handrails are located along the route to keep visitors on the trail and to assist when climbing or descending stairs. During the tour, the ranger described many of the features of the cave. However, unlike Carlsbad Caverns National Park or Mammoth Cave National Park, there are no signs naming the formations along the Garden of Eden tour route.
There are two other regular tours of the cave that are longer and follow different passages through the cave. Tickets for the Garden of Eden tour cost $10 per adult and are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the visitor center. We visited in August 2017.
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| Cave popcorn |
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| Boxwork |
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| More boxwork |
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| Even more boxwork |
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| Stairs and handrails |
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| Flowstone |
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| Boxwork |
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| Concrete path and steps |
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| Boxwork |
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| Boxwork |
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| Mineral coloration |
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| Boxwork |
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| Boxwork |
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| More stairs |
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| Airlock and elevator shaft |
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| Cave airflow monitoring equipment |
Entry to Wind Cave National Park is free. Cave tours require a fee of $10 to $30 per adult depending on the tour. Prices are reduced for children and seniors. Tickets for the current day tours are sold at the visitor center on a first-come, first-served basis.
The park website is
https://www.nps.gov/wica.
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