Exploring Wind Cave: Our Adventure on the Fairgrounds Tour

Due to elevator repairs, I had never had the chance to get below ground on my visit to Wind Cave National Park in May 2024. Though it was disappointing, we still enjoyed the short hike around Rankin Ridge and completed the Junior Ranger books during our trip. But a cave tour forever remained on our minds…

Elevators revamped and the tours resumed, Janice, her son, and I headed north in April 2025 during National Park Week to finally see what the park’s namesake was all about. I selected the Fairgrounds Tour for our group, making reservations in early-March. The Fairgrounds Tour traverses 1km underground, reaching depths of ~265 feet.

This 1½ hour tour explores both the upper and middle levels of Wind Cave. Boxwork is abundant along the trail in the middle level of the cave. In the upper level, the trail winds through the larger rooms where popcorn and frostwork can be seen. This is our most strenuous walking tour. The tour enters and exits the cave by elevator and there are 450 stairs along the 2/3 mile route with one flight of 89 steps going up.

National Park Service

With 168 known miles (as of 2024), Wind Cave contains 95% of the world’s boxwork, a rare type of calcite cave formation. I had seen some boxwork previously in neighboring Jewel Cave, so I was excited to see more of it. Wind Cave is also one of the oldest caves in the world, with parts dating back 300 million years. As the National Park Service says on their website, “It’s old, complex, and filled with more boxwork than is found in all other caves on Earth put together. Any one of these qualities would make Wind Cave unique. Together they make it a world-class cave.”

Our tour was led by Ranger Rory, a fantastically funny and awesome park ranger with a handsome handlebar moustache. After a brief safety talk, our sold-out group began piling into the elevator for a 35-second ride down into the ground. We regrouped in the Assembly Room, getting a chance to check out the room before we began our hustle through the cave.

Fairgrounds Tour reminded me of the Grand Avenue Tour at Mammoth Cave National Park in both terms of the cave geology (aside from the boxwork) and the speed of the tour, which was mostly done at a steady, solid pace instead of constant regrouping. This made taking a lot of photos tough.

At the Fairgrounds we had a chance to rest on benches as Ranger Rory told us about the Lakota Emergence Story, and how Wind Cave holds sacred signficance to the Lakota people. He also told us about Alvin McDonald, a teenager who explored 8-10 miles of the cave with a candle and ball of yarn (Alvin would pass at age 20 of typhoid fever after visiting the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where he shared samples of Wind Cave).

We wrapped up the rest of the tour and ended where we had started more than an hour earlier, the Assembly Room. Janice led a round of applause for Ranger Rory, and all park rangers who are incredible humans working day-in-day-out to preserve America’s treasures.

The day wrapped up with the gift shop (I made two trips in there to buy trinkets, books, and postcards!), postcard writing (I sent postcards to Ukraine, Ireland, and Germany whilst on travel mode through Postcrossing!), and wiggling through the caving sizing box. Though a long, four-hour drive home awaited us, it was well worth the day trip to finally visit Wind Cave!

Visit Details:
Date: April 21, 2025
Tour Details: No self-guided access to the cave is allowed. The Fairgrounds Tour is $17/person (adult), reserved in advance. The tour completely sold out, so recommend booking as early as possible here. Arrive 30 minutes beforehand and check in at visitor center. Tour leaves from the elevator building that is a short walk from the visitor center and parking lot. The Fairgrounds Tour is billed as “strenuous,” and involves navigating 450 steps. It is not accessible.