Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave & Custer State Park

Trip Details:

Where: Black Hills, Custer State Park, Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park

Campsite: Rafter J Bar Ranch (spot 68 - buddy site) 

Length: 5 days

Itinerary:

Day 1: Travel Evening to Sioux Falls, SD

Day 2: Travel Day

Day 3: Father’s Day/Rest Day

Day 4: Custer State Park

Day 5: Jewel Cave National Monument 

Day 6: Wind Cave National Park/Custer State Park

Highlights:

Paige: Wind Cave was my favorite cave with narrow portions and I felt like an ant!

Charlotte:  I really liked how the cave made us feel like we were exploring it and not guided.

Mary: I loved watching the kids paddle board on Lake Sylvan with it’s gorgeous views! 

Aaron: I enjoyed touring Wind Cave - it was different than any other cave we’ve been in. 

We were so excited to go back to this gorgeous part of America. We fell in love with Custer State Park and Black Hills back in June 2020 when we rented a Class C and took the girls up to visit the area to get away from our COVID entrapment at home. This time we went with our camping friends, the Kuhlmans and Whittenburgs, and booked a buddy site (sites 68 and 67) which was close to the pool, basketball and volleyball courts. It was still shaded and a great spot to enjoy the trees again!  For Father’s Day, the guys wanted to enjoy the day, swim, grill and hang, so we did just that! 

The next day, the Kuhlman’s headed to visit the founding fathers at Mount Rushmore while we went to visit Custer State Park. Back in 2020, we saw Mount Rushmore and chose to skip it this time. In our opinion, it’s a place where we can see once and be okay with not going back . Can we just say, we love Custer State Park. We have had so much luck searching for the bison herds, both this trip and in 2020 (see other post here), and was lucky enough to see them up close and personal again! 

That afternoon, we met up with our friends and enjoyed a picnic at Lake Sylvan and an afternoon of paddle boarding! We enjoyed walking around the lake (super easy jaunt). I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves! 

There are two caves around the Black Hills area: Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument. To visit these caves, you’ll need to get tickets to them ahead of time. Jewel Cave National Monument was a last minute add for us, so we didn’t get tickets ahead of time. For those last minute planners like us, the park has a limited amount of tickets offered in the morning. We got our families up earlier than normal and went to the park 30 minutes before they opened the ticket office up (8AM) and got 14 tickets to the 9:20 tour of Jewel Cave! FYI - The rangers are sticklers for making sure everyone wears closed-toed shoes. They wouldn’t allow one person to go on their tour because they were wearing crocks, so make sure to dress accordingly. In addition, the cave was 48 degrees, so layer up!

We ended up booking the Scenic Tour, which was a 90-minute tour that took us through a couple of floors of the cave, taking over 700 steps and seeing all types of unique cave formations including cave popcorn, boxwork and the beautiful cave bacon!! The boxwork is unique to Jewel Cave and looks like a web formation. It's formed when calcite seeps into the cracks in the limestone. As the carbonic acid eats away the limestone, the calcite is left behind, leaving the boxwork pattern.

We kept with the cave theme and went to visit Wind Cave National Park the next day!  Of the two parks, Wind Cave was our favorite. It was great to see Jewel Cave, but if you have time for one - do Wind Cave over Jewel Cave. Also, if you see both, we’d recommend seeing Jewel Cave first, then Wind Cave. Wind Cave was our 4th cave tour (Mammoth Cave, Carlsbad Caverns, Jewel Cave) and you’d think after seeing so many caves that this wouldn’t be any different, but we were wrong. 

Wind Cave was such a unique cave because of all the narrow crevices and pathways. It was an unforgettable experience for our family to tour! We loved our ranger, Madelyn, who made the tour so special for us! There were many tours available (a lantern tour looked really cool, and there were some spelunking tours too, but we opted for the Fairgrounds Tour. This tour was also a 1.5 hours and took us all over parts of the cave!

We also learned about the founder of the cave, a 16-year old boy named Alvin McDonald. He spent the rest of his life mapping the cave and exploring and journaling it. He named a lot of the rooms and areas of the cave (and giving the Fairgrounds its name). He also felt like the cave was his first home. He ended up dying from typhoid fever at 20 years of age. He was buried overlooking the entrance of the cave. As modern cave explorers find "new" rooms to this cave, they've discovered Alvin's initials or string he used to help guide him back. This makes us wonder how far he was able to go in his short life.

After the cave tour, we hiked up Rankin Ridge Trail to the lookout tower. This hike was a 1-mile loop and gave some beautiful panoramic views of Wind Cave National Park! That evening we enjoyed a much needed fire pit night after a few nights of rainstorms. 

Onwards to Yellowstone National Park!

Until next time, 

Mary