Wind Cave Nat Park, South Dakota, Who has been there?

[Alfred622]

We're thinking of visiting Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota. The brochure we saw talks about a LOT of steps. The short tour mentions 150 steps. Do you know if these are all at once or are they really spread out? I can do a flight of stairs ok, but much more than that I get pretty tired.

Has anyone here actually been to Wind Cave National park? Is it worth the visit? Should I worry that all the steps will be an issue on a tour?

Sure do appreciate your thoughts.....

[kyteacher]

We went last summer to wind cave and jewel cave on the same day. Living in Kentucky we are spoil being so close to Mammoth Cave. We were not blown away by Wind cave, but we have been to mammoth several times so that was our caving experiences. If you haven't been to many of the bigger caves, this one would be very interesting.

I don't actually remember how bad the stairs were. Sorry.

We got there later in the afternoon and were able to get on the last tour of the day. It was much calmer at wind cave than at jewel cave. Jewel cave was a freakin zoo. My wife really 'loved' the 8 mile gravel road out of there to get back to Rapid City.

[donut_dave]

both are good. just pick a less strenuous tour and you'll be fine.

[agesilaus]

vermilye wrote:
I don't remember any of the steps being worse than any other caves I've visited. Here is a page of photos from a stop at both Wind & Jewel caves in 2011.

They aren't any worse, my wife is just more sensitive to them. Actually the greatest number of steps I recall is in one of the Mammouth Cave Grand Avenue tour where you end up climbing a vertical aluminum staircase at the end of the tour, something like 140 steps if I recall correctly.

We've been in almost all the federal caves and many of the major state operated ones. The big exception would be Karchner Caverns in AZ which is on our to-do list.

[vermilye]

I don't remember any of the steps being worse than any other caves I've visited. Here is a page of photos from a stop at both Wind & Jewel caves in 2011.

[fanrgs]

We have been to both caves too. We actually thought Jewel Cave was much more spectacular than Wind Cave, but it also is deeper and has more steps. The Jewel Cave tour we took had 723 steps, but there is a shorter, single-room tour that uses an elevator and is wheelchair accessible.

At Wind Cave you can drive through a purebred bison herd--the Custer SP herd next door is not purebred. We had bulls within 10 feet of the truck when we took the dirt "back road" through the area where the cave herd was kept.

[agesilaus]

We were just there a few weeks ago. First thing, they will not let you reserve a tour on other days so GET THERE EARLY BEFORE 10AM. We checked out Jewel Cave the day before after noon and the tours were all booked and the place was a mob scene. Surprised me since it was in the middle of the week. We got to Wind Cavern early and had our pick of tours but the place started to fill up not long after that.

We did the long tour in Wind Cave, the one where the say there a 90 steps up, well that happens about a third of the way thru and the tour ranger says that was your 90 steps. But at the end you go back and climb a number more. My wife has asthma and managed to struggle thru it.

Nice tour but no Carlsbad or Mammouth, Blanchard in AR was actually better since it has better formations and is still a living cave. But Blanchard is 60 miles of Ozark 2 lane roads and the cave is a lot smaller. Jewel and Wind are actually the second and third longest caves.