Black Hills Trip 2025

The kids get a 4 day weekend for Labor day, so we took a trip up through Eastern Wyoming to South Dakota. We'd visited the Black Hills last year (see here and here), but it was at the end of a long trip, and there were several activites on our original itinerary we hadn't been able to get around to. One of those was Devil's Tower, and one was Wind Cave National Park. Since Devil's Tower is the farthest from us and Wind Cave is the closest to us, we decided to make Devil's Tower our first stop and Wind Cave our last stop. We're generally in better spirits for a long drive to a destination than we are on the long drive home.

We weren't expecting wildlife, but we saw bison mingling with long-horned cattle on our way into the national monument. While the kids worked on their Jr Ranger books, we learned that Devil's Tower was the first national monument. National monuments require presidential approval while national parks require approval from Congress. Teddy Roosevelt was instrumental in establishing the Antiquities Act of 1906, which allowed the President to protect sites of historical or scientific interest.

It is also sacred to the Lakota and other Indigenous tribes. They named it variations on "Bear Lodge" due to the legend of a giant bear (sometimes a God in the form of a bear) creating the scratch marks along the sides and the Great Spirit causing the tower to grow in order to protect the people. The name "Devil's Tower" came from a translation of "bad God's Tower."

The kids picked up their Jr Ranger books, then we took the small hike that takes you around the base of the monument.

Tyler ran ahead of us, then turned around and told me "don't go there. It's just a dead end." I explained that it's actually a lookout point, an intentional dead end.

One of the spaces on their Jr Ranger BINGO said to take a selfie with the monument. Tyler took one, and AI made a fairly accurate version of it too. 

We saw several nice views of the valley as we continued our tour around the monument.

Here there were some standing binoculars to help you see climbers that were high up on the tower. We spotted a few under the large hole on the right hand side.

We continued around seeing more lovely valley views.

When we were almost finished we saw a few climbers just getting started at the base of the tower.

We then went back around to the Visitor's Center so the kids could finish up their books and get sworn in as Jr Rangers. 

They got sworn in separately since Allison finished up her book first and wanted to look around the visitor's center and gift shop. She LOVES gift shops.

We drove by prairie dog town on our way out. There weren't too many out and about, but we did see a few.

We continued our drive to our hotel in Rapid City, stopping for dinner at Pizza Ranch along the way. Oscar went for a run the next morning where he took these photos of his view.

The next morning we went to Rushmore Tramway Adventures, which we'd fully intended to go to on our first trip. It was next door to the original hotel we booked, but then our air conditioner wouldn't work properly, and they didn't offer us another room for the rest of our stay, so we changed lodging and didn't come back into the area since we'd already visited Mt Rushmore. For this trip it was on our "maybe" list, but since it was on the way to Jewel Cave, and we already had reservation for a 3pm cave tour, we decided to do it. We purchased their ultimate package that let us do the alpine slide twice, one large Zipline, 2 times down the tube hill, one time off the jump tower, once on the soaring Eagle ride, and unlimited time on their Ropes course. The weather looked like it might rain, so they advised us to do the alpine slide and the tubing first since those would close during rain. We decided to start with the alpine slide. Here we are on the chairlift on the way up. 

There's a nice view of Mt Rushmore from the top of the chairlift. We checked it out before walking down to the alpine slide.

This was a FUN alpine slide! We liked it much more than the one we'd done at Steamboat Springs since you can get going so much faster and you don't have to work hard to get your slide to move. It gives you warning signs to slow down at the end, but both kids crashed into the tires. It's a soft blow, but the tires were filled with water from rain the previous evening, and they got splashed on a lot, especially Tyler. Thankfully it didn't end up raining more than a couple drops, and the sun came out later and dried them off.

You can see how much fun I'm having and see the impact of the crash knock Allison's glasses off. She'd actually slowed at the end for the first ride so I'm not sure why she didn't slow for the 2nd. Tyler full on barreled into the tire on his first ride without even attempting to slow down, but he made sure to do so the 2nd time.

Next we did their summer tubing. They slide big bars of soap on the bottom of your tube before you go down to make them nice and slick. It's not quite as fun as winter tubing since the snow naturally makes it incredibly slick, but it's still pretty fun.

When the kids went down, I got a video from above while Oscar, who'd just finished the slide, got one from below.

And we got videos of each other tubing. I couldn't seem to go anything but backwards. The first time they sent me down forwards, but I spun backwards almost immediately. The second time they sent me down backwards, and I stayed that way the entire time. Oscar and the kids were able to do a bit of both.

Next we went on Soaring Eagle. We'd done this sort of ride at other them and adventure parks, and typically one of us would go with each kid since they weren't tall enough to do it without a supervising companion. Now that they are, we let them go together while Oscar and I rode together.

We then took turns riding the 850ft Zipline, which goes above the tubing hill. 

Next was the jump tower.

And we spent the remainder of our time on their excellent ropes course! There were lots of unique obstacles I'd never seen on other courses, and when you get to the end of your course you finished off with a zipline or a harnessed jump (like the jump tower).

Once again AI made a pretty accurate rendering in this photo of Allison. Her clothes are pretty much spot on!

We grabbed some food at Dairy Queen as quick as we could then continued our drive to Jewel Cave national monument. We drove by Mt Rushmore on our way.

We got there in time, though it was a bit tight. I'm glad we'd made reservations several weeks early since we saw a ranger telling people hoping to go on the tour that they were already booked out for the entire weekend.

Jewel cave has a lot of calcium carbonate which makes it very pretty. There's also some cave bacon, kissing creatures, cave popcorn, and this intense cave face. The original men who discovered the cave confused the calcium carbonate for quartz and tried to mine the cave for gold. When that didn't work they tried selling the calcium carbonate, but it's very brittle and would shatter during transport. They also tried turning the cave into a dance hall, which also failed. Finally they presented it to Teddy Roosevelt, and he turned it into a national monument. They'd also tried turning it into a national park, but due to Wind Cave national park being so nearby, congress didn't go for it.

Having been to both caves I definitely think Jewel Cave is the prettier cave. If you have to pick between touring the two caves, pick Jewel Cave. Wind Cave is a largely boxwork. They have some in Jewel Cave too. Our guide told us 95% of the world's boxwork is in Wind Cave while 3% of it is in Jewel Cave. When we encountered it he asked what we would call it, and Oscar said "pumpkin guts." The original cavers thought it looked like the inside of a box, hence the name boxwork. You can see some in the top right photo.

The kids didn't have time to complete their Jr Ranger books, but they swore them in anyway and I had them work on their books on the drive back to the hotel. They also practiced crawling through this tight space to see what it was like for the original cavers to crawl through for several hours before discovering the larger rooms. One of the large rooms is called "the big Duh." At the end of our tour the ranger said anyone who'd been dripped on more than 3 times had now become part of the cave and must name themselves. Oscar called himself "Mr Duh."

Oscar and I went out for Bangladesh food that night. It's similar to Indian, but the butter chicken and the biryani were red rather than the orange and yellow that we're used to.

The next morning Oscar went on a run before we went to a local ward. We then drove towards Badlands and stopped at Wall Drug for their delicious maple cake donuts. We'd come through the Badlands the first time, but it was 108 degrees that day, so we just drove through it. We wanted to return in cooler weather so we could get out and explore a bit more and let the kids earn Jr Ranger badges.

After filling our bellies we drove into Badlands from the north entrance, which is where we'd exited last year. We saw quite a few bison near the entrance while we waited in line.

We walked around the fossil exhibit trail where Oscar had fun with "Oreodont." He's sad to see "Oreo don't" but happy to see "Oreo." 

There's some hiking across from the fossil exhibit trail, but they were long trails, so we just went out a short distance to take some pictures. Oscar and Tyler also made a duh video.

We then stopped at the Visitor's Center where the kids worked on their Jr Ranger books. They earned both a Badlands badge and a paleontology badge there. The only requirement for the paleontology badge was to go into the fossil room and ask questions of the paleontologists while they were cleaning fossils. 

After they got their badges we went to the family friendly trails - the Window and the Door. They're basically short walks, and the views from the door and the window are incredible.

Getting out of the air conditioned car was miserable on our first visit. This time the temperature was pretty perfect.

We then hiked the Notch trail and had to climb an interesting ladder along the way. I also damaged our water bottle trying to toss it down to Oscar who'd gone down a different way (there was a bit of a line to go down the ladder). I should have sent it with him to begin with!

After our visit to Badlands we drove to a new hotel in Hot Springs. Coincidentally it was right next to The Mammoth Site that we'd visited on our first trip. 

The next morning we went to Wind Cave where 96% of the world's boxwork was quite obvious. Since Jewel Cave was so much prettier, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed by Wind Cave. On the Wind Cave tour we seemed to be walking down most of the time with less input from the guide (our Jewel Cave guide had been very chatty). At Jewel Cave we went down and up the same elevator while at Wind Cave you walk down into the cave then take the elevator back up. 

This stone slab where we finished our tour made me think of Aslan's How from The Chronicles of Narnia.

We then spent some time in the Visitor's Center where the kids worked on their Jr Ranger books and were sworn in. We then went on a drive through the national park and did a small loop hike before starting our drive home. 

An hour away from home we were happy to find a Domino's and a bathroom in the small rural town of Bennett, CO. It's so small that their one gas station doesn't even have a convenient store. It's just gas pumps. I'm guessing the building used to be a different type of restaurant (maybe a burger joint) because it had nice bathrooms and several tables. You wouldn't normally find bathrooms and tables at a Domino's since they're meant for just takeout and delivery. It was nice to be able to use the bathroom then eat at a table instead of eating in the car. It made the stop much more restful.

After we ate, I drove the rest of the way home. We got back around 8:45pm to a cat who was very happy to see us.