National Park Guide

Wind Cave Field Guide

A complete planning guide to Wind Cave National Park. Covers the cave's rare boxwork formations — more than half of the world's known total — its famous barometrically breathing natural entrance, Lakota cultural and origin-story significance, the park's founding in 1903 as the first cave in the world designated a national park, ranger-led tour options from the accessible Garden of Eden Tour to the crawling, headlamp-lit Wild Cave Tour, the bison herd descended from a 1913 reintroduction effort, black-tailed prairie dog towns and the endangered black-footed ferret, Rankin Ridge's fire lookout hike, the official NPS park map, and what to know before pairing a visit with nearby Custer State Park and the Black Hills.

What's inside

• ✓Boxwork calcite formations found almost nowhere else on Earth
• ✓The barometrically breathing natural entrance sacred to the Lakota
• ✓Choosing a ranger-led tour, from Garden of Eden to the Wild Cave Tour
• ✓Bison, prairie dog towns, and the black-footed ferret recovery effort