Wind Cave National Park

Our final South Dakota National Park Service property on our weekend trip was Wind Cave National Park. Since we knew that the elevators were out, we didn’t plan to spend much time there. We opted for a drive through the park and a quick tour through the Visitors Center.

Address and Location

You’ll find Wind Cave National Park at 26611 Highway 385 in Hot Springs, South Dakota. I would recommend following the park directions to get there. Depending on what you’re using for a GPS (like your phone), you may not have good enough service to get the whole way there. We drove from Custer State Park on SD 87, and it was pretty easy for us to find.

Cost

Entrance to Wind Cave is free. You do have to pay for cave tours, but see below for a little spoiler about cave tours. You can also camp in the park for a fee.

What to do

The big trend of the weekend: the elevators at Wind Cave National Park were out of service. The elevators are closed indefinitely for maintenance and repairs. Besides the cave, you can hike several trails and drive a loop through the park. You can access some of the trails from the main park road or from the Visitors Center. We had our best bison encounters at Wind Cave. We drove past a few bison right inside the park entrance off of SD 87 and then passed a few more as we drove through the park. Also be sure to explore the Visitors Center. It has a few displays the show the history of the caves, who discovered them, and some diagrams of the caves.

South Dakota National Park sites: Minuteman Missile National Historic Site  |  Badlands National Park  |  Jewel Cave National Monument  |  Mount Rushmore National Memorial  |  Wind Cave National Park  |  Your guide to the South Dakota National Parks