Wind Cave

Wind Cave National Park lies adjacent to Custer State Park directly to the south.  It is one of the largest cave systems in the world underground and is where the prairie meets the mountains above ground.  Here are Marcia and Moosie checking out the sign by the visitor center.

The topography at Wind Cave is similar to Custer State Park with rolling prairie and forested hillsides.  Wind Cave is a bit more open prairie as the two come together.

Underground is a whole different world.  This shows some of the box work which occurs throughout the cave.  This cave contains 95% of the box work in the world.   

Wind cave is one of the largest known caves in the world.  There are currently close to 200 miles of the cave which have been explored.  This shows the colors present from different elements in the sedimentary rock which the cave is comprised of.

This shows the vista looking across the prairie from a turnout.

Here we have some of the native creatures which abound in the area.

This is back in Custer looking north from a high(read scary) lookout towards the Needles area of the Black Hills.

On our return trip to the campground we explored a forest service logging road and came across this elk bounding through the trees.  It is not a great picture but she did not leave me a lot of time to grab the camera and shoot.

Tomorrow we leave this beautiful area and head into some even bigger mountains.