Wind Cave National Park ⓘ

Many individuals and groups have been involved in the exploration of Wind Cave, one of the world's longest caves. The cave is still being explored with no end in sight.

Indigenous tribes have lived in the Black Hills since time immemorial. These early inhabitants were the first to find what is known today as Wind Cave.

Lakota oral tradition refers to a “hole that breathes cool air” near Pte Tatiopa, the “Doorway of the Buffaloes” or Buffalo Gap. It is believed that the natural entrance to Wind Cave is that breathing hole. The natural entrance is said to be an entrance to the spirit world. It's also said that the first people and bison emerged from the spirit world deep within the cave through the natural entrance.

In 1881, while riding their horses up a draw, Tom and Jesse Bingham heard the sound of blowing wind on a calm day. Following the sound, they came upon a hole in the ground. When Jesse looked into the hole the wind blew his hat right off. The story of a hole that will blow the hat off quickly spread and other people ventured out to the area to see this blowing hole.

The first written record of a trip into Wind Cave was by Frank Herbert, a Black Hills pioneer who visited the cave in 1881. He was given the cave’s location by Charlie Crary, believed to be the first person to actually descend into the cave. In this early party were Hebert, Jesse Girelle, his wife, the two Cole girls, and Mayme Sprague.

I was supposed to lead, Herbert said. We had to jump down a hole that I could just about squeeze through, six or seven feet. I started down with my lantern. Had to crawl on hands and knees facing a terrible wind for about fifty feet, and then the main hole seemed to be going down at right angles and very steep, but it gave a good foothold.

After exploring for a time, Herbert and Sprague began the long climb back toward the entrance: We started on back, found the string and followed it. Those on top helped to pull us up. They went down as far as where the main part turned down, but got scared and went back.

The National Speleological Society conducted an official expedition to Wind Cave in 1959. It was led by Robert F. Brown. Although the trip was intended to be of a preliminary nature and lasted only 10 days, more surveying and scientific research was conducted during these 10 days then all other previous times. Approximately 3 miles of cave were mapped. A good portion of this was the resurvey of tour routes, but it also included a large section of the northwest part of the cave including the surveys of places such as: the Attic, Plummer’s Pit, the Bishop Fowler’s Loop, and Brown Canyon. During the expedition and with additional months of laboratory work, enough information was collected and analyzed to permit a complete study of the cave’s mineralogy, a reconnaissance of the cave’s fauna, and a preliminary account of the cave’s geology.

Expedition member Stewart Peck won the High School National Science Fair for his work on the biology of Wind Cave done during the 1959 NSS Expedition. Peck with his science project at the National Science Fair in 1959. Dr. Peck today is a professor of biology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

When exploration trips into Jewel Cave were restricted, Herb and Jan Conn, along with Dave Schnute, began to direct their efforts to Wind Cave. In 1963 they made a breakaway from the known portion of the cave. This was the first breakaway in Wind Cave since the days of Alvin McDonald. Herb and Jan kept a diary of their explorations of Wind Cave.

A crawlway near Rome led them westward into Omnibus Hall. Further explorations led them past the beautiful Frostline, beyond the Hornet’s Nest, down the Boxwork Chimney and into the complex Calcite Jungle. This eventually led them to Calcite Lake, the first lake discovered in the cave.

Schnute and the Conns also headed west through the Roadblock, down Lonesome Road, to the Chinese Mushroom, and finding the truly massive Club Room. From 1963 until their return to intensive survey in Jewel Cave in 1965, they surveyed 15,740 feet of virgin cave and set the stage for even larger discoveries to be made several years later.

Members of the Colorado Grotto were very active during the early 1960’s at Wind Cave. They were involved in extensive surveys around the Natural Entrance, the elevators, and Pearly Gates areas. New discoveries were made including the Xerox Room, the Popcorn Room, Independence Hall, Red Crystal Canyon, and Mammoth Canyon. Today this section of Wind Cave is referred to as the Colorado Grotto Zone of the cave.

The Colorado Grotto was instrumental in finding the lost NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) student in Wind Cave in 1989. This incident renewed the Grotto’s interest in exploring and mapping Wind Cave and the park’s interest in getting more cavers familiar with the cave. Today, members of the Colorado Grotto comprise some of the most active explorers at Wind Cave.

John Scheltens in cowboy hat (Windy City and Paha Sapa Grottos), Alan Williams top center and Ed LaRock white helmet (both Colorado Grotto), and Jim Nepstad orange helmet (NPS) comprised the team that mapped Wind Cave’s 50th Mile on August 15, 1987.

In 1990, the Wind Cave Weekend Survey Project was started by the Colorado Grotto. Between 1990 and 1998, 18 miles were added to the surveyed length of Wind Cave. Since 1999, the Wind Cave Weekend Project has continued and, coupled with increased survey work by off duty park staff, an average of 7 miles a year are being surveyed.

While returning from the NSS Convention in Lovell, Wyoming in 1969, three members of the Windy City Grotto, John and Jim Scheltens, and Ralph Earlandson stopped by Wind Cave for a visit. At the park they accidentally bumped into Bob Ernst, fellow NSS member and seasonal ranger, who informed them of the need for mapping and exploration in the cave. Following a year of preparation and coordination with the National Park Service, the Windy City Grotto made its first trip to Wind Cave in August, 1970 with 17 participating members. The Windy City Grotto basically picked up where the Conns and Schnute left off. During its first trip, which lasted 3 weeks, they surveyed about 2 miles of new passage which included the discovery of Windy City Lake and the largest helictite bush yet discovered some six feet in height.

In 1971 another major breakaway was made when a survey team lead by Chris Hill found their way into the massive Master Room. Miles of huge virgin cave soon opened from here including the monstrous Half Mile Hall. Between 1970 and 1973, the Windy City Grotto surveyed or resurveyed some 107,000 (over 20 miles, in Wind Cave, more than doubling the known size of the cave at that time.

Most Black Hills cavers are members with the Paha Sapa Grotto of the National Speleological Society which is associated with the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City.

In 1977, former Windy City Grotto member, John Scheltens moved to Hot Springs to become its city engineer. A year later Dave Springhetti, another Windy City Grotto member also moved into the area. Together with members of the Paha Sapa Grotto, Scheltens and Springhetti renewed their explorations in Wind Cave. Starting where they had left off, Scheltens and Springhetti teamed with members of the Paha Sapa Grotto, occasional cavers from the Colorado Grotto, and with other cavers they explored and mapped passages between the historic section of the cave out to Half Mile Hall and beyond.

On October 8, 1980 Scheltens along with Paha Sapa Grotto member and Jewel Cave ranger Mike Wiles, former Wind Cave ranger Tom Miller, and Peter Shiflett pushed beyond any passages yet discovered when they first entered the Silent Expressway. Although strong winds flowed along Silent Expressway, this discovery marked the deepest penetration in Wind Cave until 1991.

Although many park rangers probably did some “exploring” in Wind Cave, it was not until 1959 when seasonal ranger Alan Howard began to actually document discoveries by surveying in Wind Cave. This tradition has continued into the present with park staff accompanying cavers from various grottos on exploration trips and leading such trips themselves.

In 1982 Kay Rohde began working at Wind Cave as the park’s assistant chief of interpretation. At the time, Wind Cave National Park had no management plan for its cave resources. Rohde identified the need for cave management based upon scientific data and began assembling a team of rangers to accomplish this task.

In 1984 the first cave management position was filled by seasonal ranger Warren Netherton. Netherton began organizing cave maps, inventory and survey data and documenting algae removal, cave restoration that needed to be done and tracking cave use.

Caver Jim Pisarowicz also started work at Wind Cave in 1984. When Pisarowicz said to Rohde that he was surprised that the first cave to be a national park in the world did not have a management plan, Rohde said to him, “why don’t you write a plan.” He did and it became the first draft of the first cave management plan at Wind Cave National Park.

When Jim Nepstad first visited Wind Cave as a boy of 10 he was so excited by what he saw that he said that he wanted to become a professional cave explorer. Nepstad began working as an interpreter at the park in 1983 and over the winter of 1985 he sorted out all the survey data for the cave and created the first computerized cave map of Wind Cave.

This project eventually grew into the park’s first Geographic Information System (GIS) and Nepstad became the first fulltime cave management specialist at Wind Cave National Park.

The prairie is a harsh environment. Extreme variations of temperature, moisture, and wind are always present. To eke out a living on the prairie one must be ready to meet these conditions head on, and Carl Sanson was the type of person to do just that. He and his family successfully homesteaded a large plot of land that is now part of Wind Cave National Park. On this land, he was able to adjust to the harsh, ever-changing conditions nature threw at him and survive. He endured by being able to adapt, to change with the times and conditions. The homestead of Sanson's father and later Sanson himself is testament to the tenacity of these early homesteaders and how they protected and cared for the land. According to Sanson "it took courage to live in a place eight miles from town [Buffalo Gap], with neighbors three to ten miles apart. There were many problems along the way - dry years, grasshoppers, hail storms, and range fires, but they endured them all."

Raising cattle was the major focus of ranching in the Southern Black Hills in the 1870s and 80s. Many large cattle ranches sprang up near the then thriving town of Buffalo Gap. The topography of the Southern Hills provided less severe winter conditions and promoted more robust livestock. The arrival of the railroad in Buffalo Gap in 1885 allowed these hardy cattle to be shipped to eastern and European markets. During these years cattle ranching flourished and then, just as quickly, collapsed. The seemingly endless prairie grasses were not endless. Too many cattle grazing in too little space and catastrophic weather incidents depleted the land.

August Sanson started his homestead in 1882. In 1916 Carl, at the age of 15, took over for his ailing father. Throughout the years they adjusted to the ever-changing prairie and fluctuating financial markets. When the rains stopped coming, they adjusted. Often times in dry conditions, they and their neighbors moved their cattle to other ranges - some on the Pine Ridge Reservation and some as far away as the Badlands. The Sansons understood that protecting the range was as important as protecting the livestock. Carl explained it in his memoir, "With care and no overgrazing, the grass is still here, which can't be said of some ranches. To overgraze the range will get you if you keep it up. We have sold out our cow herd twice in my lifetime when we had too long a spell of dry years but have always built back up when years were better."

To survive on the frontier you not only needed tenacity, you needed a support community, and the local community was an important part of the Sanson story. In his memoir, Sanson wrote "Like any business, the ranching business has many problems that had to be solved the best way we could. …The neighbors were always ready to help anyone anytime; your troubles were their troubles. There couldn't be a better neighborhood anywhere. We always helped each other - if we didn't, a lot of us wouldn't have survived this frontier country." Sanson's homestead started with a typical 160 acre plot of land. This was added to by August's marriage to Johanna Grashorn in 1888. Johanna and her sister had a nearby homestead which eventually became part of the Sanson Ranch. With future purchases, additional homesteads, and untimely deaths in the family the ranch eventually became 3,700 acres in size.

Dry years brought not only a depletion of the range, but dangers of prairie fires and the Sanson Ranch experienced two of them. In 1910 the Sanson home burned and the family lost everything. Much of the forested area of the ranch was burned in 1964. In 1982 Sanson lamented that that the timber was just coming back, but would not get big enough for corral poles in his lifetime. After the 1910 fire, the family lived in the old home site often sleeping outside until 1918 when they rebuilt the ranch house. Carl and his brother Adolph built the foundation out of native flagstone. Digging the basement took a lot of hard work according to Sanson, but money was tight so they did the work themselves. The cost to build the five bedroom home came to about $3,000. They celebrated the completion of the house and his parent's 31st wedding anniversary on May 19, 1919 with 150 friends and neighbors present.

The surviving buildings of the Sanson Ranch represent a way of life in Western South Dakota at the beginning of the 20th century. The barn demonstrates how each building had a specific purpose and was utilized to make the most of the modest supplies available. Various outbuildings show that a working ranch is more than just taking care of livestock before shipping them to market. The oldest building, the chicken coop, remains from 1918. Though not all from the same era, these buildings demonstrate how ranching has always been a difficult way to make a living requiring fortitude, courage, and, at times, stubborness to fight against weather, land, and failure.

Sanson faced many hardships while ranching in the southern Black Hills ranging from terrible weather events to fires to personal tragedies. Sanson is one of the many hopeful settlers who dreamt of carving a living out of the Black Hills and managed to succeed. Carl said of ranch life in the Black Hills that this was "next-year country." If things were bad this year, you hoped for things to be better the next year. The Sansons ran their ranch from 1882 until 1987; 105 years of surviving the hardships of ranch life. Carl had strong feelings for this land and in 1987 explained his feelings: "After one year of high school I had to stay home and do the work here. I was 15 at the time and have been here ever since. I must have done something right because this ranch is clear of any debt and always has been. When I reach down and pick up a handful of dirt, I can say it is mine. To me there is a lot of satisfaction being able to say that." In 1987 the Sanson Ranch was honored as being the oldest working ranch in Custer County. Carl Sanson was still using the "Lazy 96" brand that his father had used in 1882. Carl Sanson's life journey ended July 6, 1991.

In Lakota culture, history is passed down to new generations through the spoken word. There are many different versions of the Emergence Story, varying from band to band and family to family. This version comes from the Cheyenne Creek community on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Oglala Lakota tribe. The story was told by Wilmer Mesteth -- a tribal historian and spiritual leader -- to Sina Bear Eagle, who retells it in the following passage. The story can be read below or a recitation of the story can be watched. A physical copy of the story is also available in the Visitor Center.

The people recoiled in terror and ran away, so she sent her wolf after them to chase and snap at their heels. They ran back to the site of the hole from which they’d emerged, only to find that it had been covered, leaving them trapped on the surface. The people didn’t know what to do nor where to go, so they simply sat down on the ground and cried. At this time the Creator heard them, and asked why they were there. They explained the story of the wolf and Anog-Ite, but the Creator was upset. The Creator said, “You should not have disobeyed me; now I have to punish you.” The way the Creator did that was by transforming them — turning them from people into these great, wild beasts. This was the first bison herd. Time passed, and the earth was finally ready for people to live upon it. The Creator instructed Tokahe to lead the people through the passageway in the cave and onto the surface. On the way, they stopped to pray four times, stopping last at the entrance. On the surface, the people saw the hoof prints of a bison. The Creator instructed them to follow that bison. From the bison, they could get food, tools, clothes, and shelter. The bison would lead them to water. Everything they needed to survive on the earth could come from the bison. When they left the cave, the Creator shrunk the hole from the size of a man to the size it is now, too small for most people to enter, to serve as a reminder so the people would never forget from where they had come.

The prairie is a harsh environment. Extreme variations of temperature, moisture, and wind are always present. To eke out a living on the prairie one must be ready to meet these conditions head on. Much of the area in and around Wind Cave National Park was actively homesteaded in the 1890s, with one of the most successful homesteads belonging to the Sanson family . August, and later Carl, Sanson were the type of people who could eke out a living on the prairie. They and their family successfully homestead a large plot of land that is now part of Wind Cave National Park. August Sanson started his homestead in 1882. In 1916 Carl, at the age of 15, took over for his ailing father. Throughout the years they adjusted to the ever-changing prairie and fluctuating financial markets. When the rains stopped coming, they adjusted. They endured by being able to adapt, to change with the times and conditions. The homestead of Sanson's father and later Sanson himself is testament to the tenacity of these early homesteaders and how they protected and cared for the land. According to Sanson "it took courage to live in a place eight miles from town [Buffalo Gap], with neighbors three to ten miles apart. There were many problems along the way - dry years, grasshoppers, hail storms, and range fires, but they endured them all." Several mining claims were established at Wind Cave in the 1880s and 90s, but the most noteworthy one was by the South Dakota Mining Company in 1890. J.D. McDonald was hired to manage the claim. The mining was unsuccessful, but McDonald and his family realized they could make money by giving cave tours and selling formations from the cave. They filed a homestead claim over the opening and worked on improving a manmade entrance and enlarging passageways for tours. In 1892, John Stabler, saw the financial value of the cave and bought an interest in the Wonderful Wind Cave Improvement Company. During the next few years ownership of the cave and associated lands became a major question and by 1899 the land office had made a decision that was important to the creation of Wind Cave National Park. Explore the challenges of understanding who owned the cave by reading about the early history of the area.

Elk Mountain Campground, which straddles the edge of a ponderosa pine forest and open prairie, offers unique opportunities to view the diverse flora and fauna of the southern Black Hills. Campsites are available in both forested and open environments. Park staff cannot issue refunds for the campground. Campground Map A detailed map of the campground is available at Recreation.gov . Clicking on a site number also displays a photo of each campsite. Maximum site length is 36 feet and maximum width is 10 feet with slides extended. Backcountry Camping Backcountry camping is allowed in the northern part of the park. A free permit is required. Learn more here .

Wind Cave is known for its namesake cave, but this park offers a vast array of learning opportunities above ground, too. Below is a list of ranger-led programs offered at the Elk Mountain Campground Amphitheater. All are welcome to attend these free events. All events are weather dependent.

Explore various topics about Wind Cave's cultural and natural history with a ranger at the campground amphitheater. Topics vary nightly and the schedule of topics can be found posted in the campground at each restroom bulletin board. Evening programs last from 30 to 45 minutes, are free and all ages are welcome. Programs are usually presented from late May through early September. Check availability and schedule at the visitor center.

Join a ranger to learn about the Rocky Mountain elk, one of Wind Cave's most elusive residents. Visitors will be invited to hear a short presentation at the campground amphitheater, and then caravan in their personal vehicles to a nearby destination to listen for the bugle of the elk. This program lasts 30 to 45 minutes, is free and all ages are welcome. Programs are presented from mid- to late-September. Check the schedule at the visitor center.