Exploring the Black Hills

As if I hadn't seen every possible landscape the country has to offer, I arrived in the Black Hills. This area is a beautiful combination of rolling prairie and forested mountains. The Black Hills may be known for gold, but the area is also rich in national parks.

My first stop was in Eastern Wyoming, in the Bear Lodge Mountains part of the Black Hills, at Devil's Tower National Monument. This park's claim to fame is the igneous rock tower the shoots up from prairie. There are not any other rock formations near it so it seems very out of place and it just dominates the horizon. This place is so powerful, aliens decide to land there in the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." There's a trail that circles the base of the tower that I hiked and there I learned all about the tower. Devil's Tower is a very sacred place to the local Native American tribes and they often have religious ceremonies there. Around the base of the tower, there are prayer cloths tied to trees by the Native Americans. I also learned the tower was formed by volcanic activity and as the rock and magma cooled, the very visible columns formed. These columns make Devil's Tower a very popular spot for climbers. I got to see a group of climbers on their way up; they're fun to watch! And because I'm easily fascinated by all things nature, I was mesmerized by my first sight of a prairie dog town. Prairie dogs don't just live in little groups, they live in huge colonies! Right next to the park road I saw tons of prairie dogs running around, jumping in and out of their holes. I was so amazed by the number of prairie dogs and the size of their town.

Then, I made it in to South Dakota. The Black Hills of South Dakota are home to three national parks, Wind Cave National Park, Jewel Cave National Monument, and Mount Rushmore National Memorial. First, I explored the caves. Both Wind Cave and Jewel Cave have ranger guided tours that are really interesting. Wind Cave gets its name from the story of its discovery. Miners were scoping out the area when they heard the sound of wind but they could not feel it. So they followed the sound and were led to the natural entrance of the cave. Wind cave is a "breathing" cave, which means air flows in and out in order to equalize the pressure down below. So at the natural entrance, wind is always blowing into the cave or blowing out. Once the cave was discovered, they did not find valuable minerals, so the cave became a privately run tourist attraction until President Roosevelt established it as a national park in 1903. It is currently the 6th largest cave in the world but the majority of it hasn't even been explored yet! What makes Wind Cave really unique is the boxwork rock formations. These formations look like a honeycomb pattern sticking out from the walls. Wind Cave is home to 95% of the known boxwork formations in the world. On the tour, I got to see the boxwork, the usual stalactites and stalagmites, and the signatures of people that visited the cave in its early days when they could pay a dollar to write something. Also, at one point the ranger shut off all of the lights and we got to experience complete darkness. The tour was great, the ranger did a great job on making it fun and not scary.

Just a few miles from Wind Cave is Jewel Cave National Monument. So after the Wind Cave tour I headed over to do the Jewel Cave tour. Jewel cave is named because of its abundance of calcite crystals that line the walls. It is even longer than Wind Cave by about 40 miles, making it the third longest in the world. The dogtooth spar crystals were very pretty and the nailhead formations reminded me of coral. And the ranger also pointed out some "cave bacon;" a formation that was the colors and shape of a slice of bacon. I was impressed that even though the two caves are so close together, they were very different.

And of course the most patriotic Black Hills attraction, Mount Rushmore National Memorial. It is a huge statue carved into the side of the granite mountain. The four presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt) represent four different stages of American history. Washington, representing the birth of our nation, Jefferson, the westward expansion, Lincoln, the unification, and Roosevelt, the progressive fighter. Walking up to the statue is an amazing experience; the presidents just glow out of the rock. Also there, while I was walking around the path, I saw mountain goats for the first time. The park has really nice exhibits showing how and why it was built. It is an amazing feat of art and engineering. I had a great time. Like a postcard in the gift shop said, "It'll bring patriotic tears to your eyes."

The Black Hills was a great time for me, I understand why so many people go for vacation. There was so much to see and I'm very happy I had a chance to visit the area. The first three of the five national parks in South Dakota were great, I couldn't wait to see the next ones.

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