As part of our summer trip to Grand Teton National Park in 1993, a previous companion and I decided to dawdle along the way to take in a tour of Wind Cave, near Hot Springs, South Dakota. We elected to participate in the "Caving Tour" offered by the Park Service. This four hour tour is provided several times a week to groups of no more than ten. Its purpose is to introduce visitors to certain aspects of wild caving, while stressing conservation, safety and movement techniques.

Actually, we didn't just drop in on a whim. Since at most forty or fifty people per week get to go on this trip, reservations are required and the Park rules are such that they may not be made more than one month in advance. I wasn't going to get cut out of the pleasure of Wind Cave, so I carefully counted down the pages of the calendar and made our reservations on the first legal day!

Furthermore, a reconfirmation is required by phone two days before the trip, which I dutifully took care of from a booth in the Badlands on the way out. Finally, a personal check-in at the Visitor Center must be made no later than a half hour before departure. Well, we beat this one too, arriving early in the morning to scope things out. We also took advantage of this time to learn some history of Wind Cave at the superb interpretive displays in the basement of the Visitor Center and to have a leisurely breakfast with the rufous-sided towhees and bison aboveground in the park.

At 12:30 our group congregated on the Visitor Center verandah. While we waited for the park naturalist to finish up the last minute details, we all had a chance to get to know each other a little. A couple from New Jersey, Jim and Linda, seemed the most excited about the adventure (apart from me!). Well, actually, Linda appeared somewhat apprehensive, and fidgeted a little. On the other hand, Jim was literally bursting with enthusiasm. Just to give you an idea of his excitement, I'll mention that he was also intending to take in the "Spelunking Tour" at Jewel Cave on the following day. You need to be able to wriggle through an 8-1/2" by 24" opening at the narrowest part, and way back in February, Jim had built a mock-up from lumber to these dimensions to test his readiness.

Kevin...was also very good at helping some of the people... negotiate the tighter and more convoluted passages...

Before leaving the verandah to suit up, we paid for our tickets, at $8.00 per person back then. We also met our tour guide, Kevin, who is a seasonal park naturalist. During the school year, Kevin teaches physics and biology at a high school in Kentucky. I thought to myself that this bodes well! Imagine, a trip leader with a scientific background, and from one of the premier cave states in the nation. And we weren't disappointed. Besides being very personable and friendly, Kevin also proved to be a great source of geological information. (He was also very good at helping some of the people through a few of the trickier contortions required to negotiate the tighter and more convoluted passages).

...the transmission on their car had fizzled earlier that week and they had been forced to drive in reverse from the Grand Canyon...

Three people didn't check in by the required 12:30 time limit, so as it turns out, a standby list was called into play. After some announcements on the public address system, replacements to our party were found. These were three young men from an eastern college, who were making a grand loop of the western states, working their way home again now. I'm really glad that room was found for them, for they deserved a break. We later learned that the transmission on their car had fizzled earlier that week and they had been forced to drive in reverse from the Grand Canyon down to the nearest filling station! Anyway, with reservations so tight for this trip, they were extremely fortunate to have been chosen as backups. And they knew it, for as the trip progressed it became very clear to everyone that they were in seventh heaven, really soaking up the neat atmosphere of the adventure. Though they were a little frightened when we began, by the end of the day it seemed to me that these young men were truly exhilarated by the trip and might just get hooked on caving.

With our party finally all assembled, we followed Kevin to the suiting up area. Wind Cave National Park provides each visitor with a helmet and mounted electric light (4 D cell, belt battery pack type) as well as the standard two alternate sources of illumination (a MagLite on a necklace and waterproof matches with a candle). Additionally, gloves and knee pads are offered. When I saw the hard rubber knee pads the park makes available, though, I was glad my girlfriend and I had packed in our own under-the-pants athletic ones. Even Kevin confessed that the standard issue knee pads may just have been invented during the Spanish Inquisition.

After signing releases and getting some last minute instructions from Kevin, the eleven of us headed to the service elevator and began our descent. Almost all of the tours of Wind Cave, from the easiest to the hardest, start with the elevator, so when we got out, we were confronted with electric lights, concrete sidewalks and a mass of people waiting to ascend from a tour of one of the developed areas. We politely edged past them and slipped into the darkness, away from the annoyance of level, clean surfaces and (dare I say it?), crowds. After only ten feet of passage on hands-and-knees, we were safely ensconced in the quiet and the dark.

"...we were completely surrounded by a staggering array of boxwork!"

Almost immediately, even before my eyes had adjusted, I was flabbergasted. We were completely surrounded by a staggering array of boxwork — as far as the headlamp would shine, yards and yards of boxwork! It was going to be a great trip. This part of Wind Cave is, in general, dry and so far we had only passed through five minutes of an easy tunnel.

But the surface and walls were definitely getting more jagged now, and just a little closer. At this point, I was shoring up the rear of our party (the better to loiter and enjoy the view).

"I think I'm hyperventilating!"

All of a sudden I noticed things were slowing down in front and I heard a weak, high voice cry "I think I'm hyperventilating!" As the events unfolded, it became clear that Linda, mentioned above, was really starting to have some sort of mental reaction. Her husband, Jim, and Kevin the park naturalist talked to her for a while, but it was clear that she was becoming more and more indisposed to the surroundings. I really felt for Jim, for as I mentioned, he had his heart set on seeing some wild caving action in the Black Hills, yet it seemed for a brief spell that he might have to abort the trip and escort his frightened wife back to daylit comfort.

Linda insisted that she had to return to the surface, but fortunately (and generously, I thought), she also suggested that Jim continue the trip without her. Kevin, of course, was deposed to take her up, since he had the keys to the elevator. That left the nine of us down below to wait for his return. I suppose that normally this would not be a good thing, leaving a party unattended in a National Park cave, for you never know what sort of unthinking mischief the general public might get up to. However, I like to surmise that the NSS patch on my cave jacket suggested something "official." We all sat still and simply soaked in the atmosphere.

When Kevin returned, we were on our way in earnest. In general our trip was dry, but very dirty and dusty, with no chest compressors to deal with. On the other hand, there was a fair amount of breakdown to negotiate and lots of up and down scrambling. We had a good mix of regular walking, duckwalking, hands and knees, bellycrawling and even a little rockclimbing. Some of the passages were better done feet first, some head first and some even required a sideways crawl. Our guide Kevin was always good about describing techniques required to get through the more difficult areas. I'm not going to say that this is the hardest caving I've ever done, but on the other hand I really perspired in places and was glad for a sit down from time to time!

One of the more memorable passages we had to deal with was a sort of corkscrew up through the rock, about fifteen feet. I felt that the passage was uncannily like one of those cast iron Victorian spiral staircases with absolutely no guard rail, except this one you ascended on your stomach. The going was very tight, and the headlamp never seemed to shed light where it was required. This was almost a blind crawl up into pitch black, knowing that a crevice full of jagged rocks waited below to catch the errant tourist. And this was clearly a "one person at a time, please" adventure; in any event, it was impossible for the trailing person to see what darkness swallowed up the leading person due to the sharp turns.

One by one we negotiated this passage, to the calls of "Clear!" followed by the response "Climbing!". Then the hitch occurred.

One of the college boys started to ascend and we heard a lot of scuffling and sliding about, and perhaps even a little grunting. There was a pause and then the scrambling began again. Finally, he came back down to us, the tail end of the party, and said dejectedly, "I can't make it! I'm just too big." He seemed so sad that the trip was coming to an end for him, and we hadn't even gotten half way yet. We asked him what the hangup was specifically, and from his description it was clear that all was not lost! Before we began this part, Kevin had described what was to come in great detail. He had said, "Keeping turning counterclockwise, to the left". Our college boy had been trying to turn clockwise, right into the tightest part, where the rock pinches off for a bit! One lady in our party noted this and encouraged him up again, and lo and behold, he got through marvelously. The rest of us brought up the rear and we were on the trail again.

Well, we saw and did lots more, putting in a good four hours of exploring along 3000 feet of passage. Some of the sights I will never forget include the incredible boxwork, of course, as well as the most perfect patch of gypsum needles one could imagine. These were just like the pictures, delicate fibers not more than a hair's thickness and perfectly crystalline clear. In fact they were so dainty that it took a lot of fussing with the lights to make them stand out. During the latter part of the trip we encountered a massive array of frostwork. And yet, very noticeable by their absence were all of the standard speleothems we had come to expect from lowa and Minnesota caves, such as flowstones, stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws and bacon strips. But the ever able and ever willing tour guide Kevin, at our request, took us on a bit of a detour to a moister part of the cave sporting these formations — just to satisfy our homesickness.

As we brought the expedition to an end, we reappeared in a part of the developed and lit section of the cave, but this time at a different level. Careful not to track mud and dirt onto the pavement, we congregated by the elevator for our trip back up. Again, we met a crowd coming along one of the easier walking tours (they sure bring a lot of people below ground at Wind Cave!) Once at the top, we de-geared and bid adieu to our partners of the last four hours. A light rain welcomed us. (This was later to turn into a downpour overnight which would obliterate the road construction between Wind Cave and Hot Springs where we were staying. Had we waited until the following day to attempt the visit...)

It was a good trip. I think Jim got to see some of the action he obviously was craving, but I wondered if he and his wife would have much to chat about that night. Our three college boys would have cause to thank their lucky stars that exactly three people backed out of the original roster, thus making room for them. I suspect this cave adventure will stand out in their minds as the peak of their western vacation. And my companion came through with flying colors. While she wasn't a caver, her love of geology and science lured her into a tight, messy and craggy venue with me to see a little of the earth from the inside out. And Kevin, our park naturalist, I will long remember as being a real credit to the National Park Service. Our whole group literally peppered him with endless questions on geology, chemistry, biology, movement techniques, caving practices, conservation and so on, and he never missed a beat, handling our requests sensibly and in good spirits. I would like to think that he enjoyed himself on this trip, too.