Geocaching Recap - Dakotas Trip

The Dakotas trip was exactly as productive as I had hoped it would be. I knew that going with one geocacher and two non-geocachers would make any kind of large numbers not feasible, but the goal for the trip was to chalk up some new states, which is precisely what we were able to accomplish. Planning was important, as Leo and Ted were supportive of my desire to find caches in all these new states, but I didn't want to test the patience of the group by trying for too many extra stops. As it was, the planning I did paid off, as we were able to find a total of 14 caches in 7 states. All of those states were new for Dave, and only Wyoming was a repeat for me.

I began the trip with 847 finds in 12 states, and ended with 861 finds in 18 states. The final tally was 1 Colorado, 1 Nebraska, 3 South Dakota, 3 Wyoming (added to the 6 I already had), 1 Montana, 4 North Dakota, and 1 Minnesota. Courtesy of the roughly 3,000 mile round trip, my total cache-to-cache distance is now over 18,650 miles.

Highlights of the trip were the virtual cache that is Devils Tower, and the earthcache at the top of Harney Peak. Several of the caches were nice easy roadside ones at pullout locations that provided amazing views of the countryside. My only regrets from a planning perspective were a few things that would have been easy to do with a little better foresight. In Theodore Roosevelt National Park, there was an earthcache along the Caprock Coulee Trail, which we hiked in its entirety, but I forgot to note the requirements before setting out. Consequently, I didn't gather the appropriate information off of a few placards along the way, and didn't take the required photo at the proper location. There were also a number of opportunities for a few extra North Dakota and Minnesota caches on the final Friday during our 9 hours of driving. We made several stretch the legs stops along the way, and those could have been made to coincide with a few known cache locations. Oh well. Small complaints in an otherwise very successful trip. I love the look of my state map now.

Little Devil's Tower

Dakotas Day 4 - Monday August 1, 2011 (Part 3)

S/SW on the Norbeck Trail

10:24am - Splitting off from the Sylvan Lake Trail that took us up to Harney Peak, we head south on the Norbeck Trail for a short distance before heading SW on the Little Devil's Tower Trail. We have decided to take a longer route back to the lake so as not to have to backtrack over the same trail we came up on.

10:29am - We are hiking through spectacular pine scenery, with sandy gravel under foot and blue skies above. As we hike further south, we see more and more evidence of the clear cutting that is being done to prevent the spread of the pine beetle infestation that is an epidemic, killing trees by the thousands of acres. Whole large areas of pines have been cut to the ground and gathered into large heaps. Where there must have been wooded areas with various smaller plant understory is now exposed to the harsh sun and is barren.

Pine and Granite everywhere

Cathedral Spires from the North

10:45am - We are passing by a formation known as Cathedral Spires, which is another fantastic outcropping of exposed and eroded granite mountain. There is a side trail that passes near the base of the formation, and I am sure it would be well worth the effort, but we do not have the time (or energy by the time all is said and done) to make that detour. We have already made the decision to do a larger loop in the hopes of hiking to Little Devil's Tower, and we are ambitious but not foolhardy. Well, most of us anyway...

As we trudge along the gravelly trail I am continually amazed at the beauty of the landscape. It is so completely different from anything I am used to around home that it is especially gratifying to be here. Without the pine beetle blight, it would even more spectacular, which is hard to imagine.

Approaching Little Devil's Tower from the South

10:51am - We reach the intersection where the spur trail to LDT splits off from the main trail back to Sylvan Lake. Leo wants a cold swim, Ted and Dave want to do LDT, and I am unsure. At this point I am tired, my feet are sore, my right knee is acting up a little bit, and it is hot as hell out here on the ridge tops where all the trees have been cut down and there is no place to hide from the sun. Ultimately, Leo decides to head on to the lake alone, while the remaining three of us head north up the spur trail to LDT. I know that when the going gets tough, I will likely bail out, but I would at least like to make the effort. Chances are that I will never get back this way again, and I would like to go as far as I can, even if I know it is unlikely that I can do another mountain.

Climbing Little Devil's Tower hand over hand

11:02am - I reach the base of the LDT formation. Dave and Ted have gone on ahead of me, and I am following along slowly at my own pace. There is a short tough climb up a draw to get to the fun part, where you need to start climbing hand over hand up the rocks. I love this, but I am hot and tired. I convince myself to go as far up as I can, but I know I will not make the summit. I like climbing, but this is a lot of climbing, there is a lot of exposed height involved, and my legs are feeling a little rubbery. The hot and tired part I could handle, but I don't really want to be climbing hand over hand up steep granite walls with legs that are feeling dead.

11:15am - I am perhaps halfway up the climbing part of LDT, and have reached a sort of plateau from which I have magnificent views in almost all directions. The views are like those from Harney Peak, if a little less high and a little less grand. Spectacular nonetheless. Dave and Ted are somewhere up above me. I assume they have reached the top by now as I am poking along in no hurry whatsoever. I expect to see them coming back down at some point soon. As for me, this is as far as I go. I tried going further but just don't feel up to it. I am disappointed, but there is no shame in my performance today. I have hiked a bunch of miles in more demanding terrain and heat than I am used to, and am happy with what I have accomplished so far. And we are by no means done, with a few miles left before we are back at Sylvan Lake.

View from most of the way up Little Devil's Tower

11:17am - I hear voices above me, and shortly after that I can see Dave and Ted outlined against the sky on the rim of the mountain. I manage to get their attention and take a few good pictures of them posing with their arms raised in triumph. After a few minutes they disappear from sight and I imagine that they will be rejoining me in the not too distant future. I sit down to wait and a young couple goes by, slipping and sliding enough as they make their way up the mountainside to be of some concern, but the disappear over the top and I don't hear any screaming so I guess they made it. As I wait, my cell phone rings and it is Grace wanting to say hi. I am happy to hear her voice, and we chat for a few minutes. As I am wrapping up the call, a very outdoorsy looking older couple goes by and shows obvious disdain for my use of the phone. Whatever. I am 2,000 miles from home and my little girl wants to say hello, so I am fine with that. I wouldn't be going out of my way to make a call, but I certainly aren't going to ignore that one.

Dave and Ted summit Little Devil's Tower

11:30am - Dave and Ted have rejoined me, and we make our way back down off LDT. Going down on a sore knee is worse than going up, as is always the case, but I am feeling pretty good. For me today it is more a case of dead legs than sore knees or feet. Which now that I mention it, my feet are a little sore. We head south on the LDT spur trail, and then west/southwest on the Little Devil's Tower trail back toward Sylvan Lake. Our hike is relatively easy at this point, which is a good thing as we are all feeling the heat and the exertion. It is nice to wind down through the wildflowers, granite outcroppings and occasional areas of wetland, but I am very glad we are going down and not up. At one point we see something in the trail ahead, and it turns out to be Leo's hat. We make the requisite jokes about Leo discarding pieces of clothing to lighten the load, and wonder what item of his we will see next. We are all hoping not to see underwear. :-) Fortunately the hat is only a stray...

We reach the trail head for this trail at exactly noon, which means it is a quarter mile back paralleling the road to get to Sylvan Lake and where we started.

12:13pm - Back at our starting point. We are hot and tired and the thought of getting into a cold mountain lake sounds wonderful, so that is what we do. I make sure I don't have my phone in my pocket, and go right into the water in my hiking shorts. The water is cold but delightful, and after a little while everything numbs up enough that you forget how cold it is. Leo is already in the water when we arrive, none the worse for wear, but glad to have his hat back.


As far as I can tell we covered about 9 miles in exactly 5 hours, with stops, lots of picture taking and a lunch at the top of Harney Peak. If you take out lunch time, we made a pace of only a little over two miles per hour, but given the ruggedness of the terrain and the amount of time we spent gawking at the scenery and me taking pictures, I think we did fine. I think this is probably the best day of hiking I have ever done (in every respect). What a thrill.

Next...The rest of Day 4: Burgers, Laundry, Camp, and a Storm.

Harney Peak Summit

Dakotas Day 4 - Monday August 1, 2011 (Part 2)

9:01am - We climb the last few sets of man made steps and iron stairs, and come out on top of Harney Peak. It is a beautiful day, a nice accomplishment, and the view is breathtaking. I am grateful to be up here on such a nice day with perfect weather to enjoy the spectacular view, remembering all too well Dave's tales of summiting Mount Marcy in NY in awful weather with fog cutting the view down to nothing. The exact opposite is true here and I feel like I can see halfway to forever. The view is of pine forest and weathered granite hills as far as the eye can see. Sights like this are why I like to hike, and what make those hard-work climbs worth it.

There is a thing called Highpointing, which is to climb to the top of the highest point in each state. I know that Dave and the others have talked about checking some of these off their lists (notably Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks of NY and Clingman's Dome off the Appalachian Trail in TN), but to my knowledge at this point, this was my first one. A little research once I got home would prove this out; Harney Peak SD is the 14th highest state highpoint, and my first.

Enjoying the thrill of being in such a beautiful place, we have a group picture taken by a nice family, and then return the favor for them. We then explore the stone fire tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1939. It is no longer is service, and is rundown in some places, but is a very picturesque building in an amazing location.

There is also an "earthcache" type of geocache up here. An earthcache is a type of cache that is generally geology based, and can be of varying levels of complexity, ranging from answering a few questions about what you see at specific locations to things that seem like they should be term papers for college geology courses. This is a relatively easy one, and I wander around a bit to take some notes and fulfill the requirements. As I am doing so, I am startled to see a chipmunk on the stone steps right next to me. I would have thought of these as woodland creatures from back home, but I have always liked chipmunks, and take this as a good omen.

There is also good cell reception up on top of the mountain, which is somewhat of a rarity around here, so I do the sacrilegious thing and make a call and send some text messages. Oh well, as I have said, this doesn't bother me at all, regardless of what others might think.

9:20am - Lunch time. With the hard work we have done this morning, everybody is ready for a meal, no matter what the time of day. Call it lunch, call it second breakfast, the only thing that was important was that it was one of the tastiest sandwiches and granola bars I have ever had. Location location location. Eating our lunch out on the rocks behind the tower did bring with it something else...chipmunks in droves. It seems that the cute little one I saw back on the stairs was a scout for an invading army. As soon as we sat down to eat, chipmunks came at us from every direction, boldly darting toward our backpacks, sneaking up behind us, and doing everything they could do to get near our food. At any given time there were at least half a dozen in sight. It was kind of funny until it became annoying.

9:45am - As great as the view is, we have a lot to do yet today, and are anxious to continue on with our hike. I stop to take in the views one last time before heading back down the mountain. I am sorry to have to go, as I feel like I could spend the rest of the day up here. Or the rest of the week for that matter. Yes, I am sappy and sentimental.

10:02am - We are down off the peak, and have backtracked to the point where the Harney Peak Trail splits either southwest back along the Sylvan Lake Trail (the way we came), or south along the Norbeck Trail to its junction with the Little Devils Tower Trail. We have all decided that we are feeling good and rather than backtrack our ascent route, we should take the Little Devils Tower trail. So we shoulder our packs and head south.

Next ... Little Devils Tower

Up to Harney Peak

Dakotas Day 4 - Monday August 1, 2011 (Part 1)

5:25am - Up early again. I am not a morning person but it is very easy to get up at dawn when you are camping. It feels natural to go with the earth's cycle of get up with the sun, and go to bed not too long after the sun goes down. The day today revolves around our Harney Peak hike, which I expect to be one of the highlights of the entire trip. Given the exhausting Wind Cave hike yesterday in the heat of the day, and the nearly as hot Scotts Bluff hike also in the heat of the day, we have promised ourselves that this hike (a much more substantial one) will begin early to make the most of the shade and lower temperatures. I will also be carrying more water than normal, and something for an early lunch on the summit.

The idea of the tallest peak east of the Rockies makes me a little nervous because of the climbing we will have to do. As I have said before, I am not a great climber, and do not necessarily enjoy it all that much sometimes. The views are always worth it, but it is hard work for me. I haven't felt any soreness in my knee thus far on the trip, but if it is going to happen, this is the kind of hike that will do it.

Breakfast of granola bars and a quick wash-up and we are on the road to the trail head, which is the same parking lot as for the swimming area at Sylvan Lake. At this time of the morning there are only a couple of other vehicles; probably hikers like us getting an early start.

7:16am - A brief stop at the trail head sign for a picture and we are on our way. The hike begins through stands of Ponderosa pine and grasses, and is a consistently uphill, but not excessively so. Temperatures are in the 70's, it is slightly overcast, and it is a delightful day to be on the trail. Leo as usual is in the lead setting a moderate pace. The photographer is as usual bringing up the rear and scrambling to keep up after stopping for distractions and pictures. I am feeling my day pack a little as it is loaded with as much fluid as I can easily carry, although it is certainly nothing like carrying an actual backpack. My drink supply includes a 32oz Nalgene bottle of Gatorade, an off the shelf 20oz bottle of Gatorade, and a 50oz water bladder in the pack. The more I drink, the lighter the pack gets.

7:33am - Junction of the Sylvan Lake Trail and the Lost Cabin Trail. Leo had wanted to do the entire Lost Cabin loop around the peak, but the general consensus was that this was probably biting off more than we could chew. In retrospect, that may or may not have been true, but probably would have been.

7:40am - We are climbing more now, and are skirting a ridge line to our right. The views opening up on our left are amazing. Pine forests and granite hills and outcroppings as far as the eye can see.

8:02am - We seem to be into the heart of hills in this area now as vista after vista of hills unfold before us. The hike is a workout to be sure, but it feels great at this point. The legs are springy, the lungs are cleared out, and I feel like I could go a long way today.

8:10am - We have crossed into the Black Elk Wilderness area and come to the junction of the Sylvan Lake Trail and a horse loop cutoff trail. There are stretches now where we are gaining noticeable elevation.

8:36am - Junction with the Little Devils Tower and Norbeck trails. This means we are getting close to the turnoff for the climb to the Peak.

8:52am - We turn off onto the side trail for the final climb to the Peak. I am a little tired at this point, but I still feel good and my legs are holding up just fine. So many nice pictures to take. Shortly after turning off onto this spur, we stop with a small group of others at a spectacular overlook. I note with some amusement that a couple of the women in the group are having a smoke while they rest. Not all that uncommon, but always amusing to me.

A short climb up some steps built into the mountainside and we will be there...

Next... The Summit

Mount Rushmore and Sylvan Lake Campground

...or Why?
Dakotas Day 3 - Sunday July 31 (Part 4)

1:20pm - We are back at our previous night's campsite to use the running water to clean ourselves off as best we can and put on dry clothes for the drive to Mount Rushmore. I am not overly enthusiastic about seeing this, but it is one of those things that you should stop and do while you are this close. Dave and Ted have seen it many years ago and say that there isn't all that much to it, but since we are practically driving right by we can't not stop. As far as that goes, I agree.

The drive to Mount Rushmore up highway 87 (if you can call it that) is only 30-some miles, but it takes longer than I would have expected. The roads through this part of the Black Hills curve up and down mountains, wrap around hairpin turns and switchbacks, have one lane bridges and tunnels, and have tourist traffic. All of which conspire to make this a pretty drive, but a long and dizzying one.

3:30pm - We pay the $10 or $12 per car fee to get in and park. The mountain rises up over the parking lot, and is an interesting and somewhat bizarre sight. Out here in the middle of nowhere, for some reason, someone decided that creating this memorial was a good idea. I understand that I am being intentionally dense to make a point, but I have exactly the reaction to this sight that I expected I would have. I just don't get it. Not even a little bit. It is big. It is impressive for what it is. The amount of work and skill required to carve it is undeniable. I just don't comprehend the "why?" The answer of course is either "because" or "why not", and that is fine. It just leaves me.... hollow.

There are a number of different areas within the memorial grounds that can be visited, including a sculptors' workshop and various history displays, but nobody (including me) seems to show any inclination to visit any of these. We wander in through the central plaza, which is fairly crowded, take some pictures at the main viewing area, and get ready to leave.

As silly as this may sound, the highlight of the stop at Mount Rushmore was a simple dish of vanilla soft serve ice cream on a very hot day.

4:15pm - A quick stop at a store in Keystone, a few miles back down the road from the memorial, provides us with a reload of ice and some other food essentials, as well as a case of beer and a few bottles of wine. Relaxing with a beverage or two at camp at the end of a long day is a nice treat...

The road around to Sylvan Lake is windy and slow just as the approach to Mount Rushmore was.

5:00pm - Arrival at Sylvan Lake campground. There is a nominal entry fee to use the facilities of Custer State Park, in which the campground sits, so we pay and then check in for our two reserved campsites (#17 and #19). We picked two tent sites near each other at the very back of the campground, figuring that they would be more secluded than some of the others. It turns out we were right. Parking is at the bottom of a hill, with good water nearby, latrine and trash facilities right next to the parking, and a shower building further down the hill. The campsites themselves are perhaps a hundred yards up the hill from the van. Dave and I have the site most of the way up the slope, and Leo and Ted take the one at the top of the hill, located right on a saddle of the hillside with beautiful views out the back of the campground.

6:00pm - Camp is set. To get to the campground we drove past the general store and little restaurant that sits on the shore of Sylvan Lake. The lake looked beautiful, and we had daylight left, so we decided to go for a swim. The parking lot was crowded with cars and motorcycles, and we were barely able to find a spot to put the van. People were using the lake for swimming, fishing, canoeing and kayaking, and hiking on the paved multi-use path around it. The swimming area had a little manmade sand beach tucked into some pine woods in an area surrounded by large boulder fields and rock oucroppings. The water was cold but incredibly refreshing, and it was nice to wash some of the sweat away.

7:20pm - Dinner back at camp, and a nice evening sitting out and enjoying the company. It was a long and very full day (as they all will be), but another very satisfying one.

Next... Harney Peak hike

Hiking Wind Cave, South Dakota

...or, Who Turned Off the Air Conditioning?
Dakotas Day 3 - Sunday July 31, 2011 (Part 3)


10:45am - Dave and I stop for a second South Dakota geocache within a mile of the trailhead of our intended hike, and then we make our way to the parking lot. It is hot, with temperatures in the mid-90's. The sky is clear and blue and the sun shines down. Exactly how much sun would be apparent later, but at the moment it is beautiful country as far as the eye can see and we are anxious to get on the trail.

Rolling grasslands

10:57am - We set out on an approximately 4 mile hike, diving headlong into the heat of the day. From parking, we will follow the Lookout Point Trail south then east around to its intersection with the Centennial Trail, which we will follow north and then west back around to our starting point. Scenic highlights of the trail are to include a prairie dog town, open rolling grasslands typical of the southern Black Hills country, and a stream valley with pine forests. We can expect to see prairie dogs (yes), bison (yes) and possibly rattlesnakes (thankfully, no). The guidebooks recommend this hike highly for those (like us) that want to capture the flavor of the different kinds of terrain that can be found in this park but do not have a lot of time for a more extensive hike in which to explore the area. In other words, this hike should suit us perfectly.

Fields of flowers

10:57am - Off we go. The first part of the hike is along a tiny stream through patches of grassland and fields of yellow and purple flowers. Soon we climb out of the little stream valley and crest a rise that gives us a fantastic view across the grassland, and provides a nice overlook down into a prairie dog town. Our presence sets the sentries to chattering, and some of the prairie dogs disappear into their burrows. Others stand upright and still, watching to see what kind of threat we might pose.

There are places here where you can see for miles and this is one of them. The sky is huge, and the horizon stretches on for a very long way. This is an observation I will make many more times before the week is out...

The road goes ever on...

Somewhere around here, I mis-read the map, and think that we are halfway done the southern part of our loop when in fact we are only one quarter of the way done. This mistake doesn't do any harm, but causes a little bit of confusion later on when we are trying to figure out when we should be expecting to find the next trail junction landmark. A quick consultation with my gps and a topographic map set us on the right path, but the minor error on my part makes me very conscious of being correct in map reading for the remainder of the trip. I pride myself on being very good with maps and my gps, and having jumped the gun here on the first opportunity was a cause of minor embarrassment to me (although I doubt anyone else really noticed).

11:10am - It is hot. We are hiking along the top of a ridge line in the grasslands and the sun is beating down. There is no shade because there are no trees. The temperature is in the upper 90's and the sun is brutal, but it doesn't feel too bad yet because of the breeze up here on top of the ridge. We are hiking in what will be the most common formation of the trip - Leo in the lead because he sets a moderate pace that is acceptable to everyone. Ted would go faster, but he doesn't typically lead for exactly that reason; he would gallop out ahead and create a gap between himself and the rest of the pack. Dave and Ted follow Leo (interchangeably) in the #2 and #3 spots, and I bring up the rear. I don't bring up the rear because I am the slowest hiker necessarily, but because I am the expedition's designated photographer. Dave has brought a point and shoot camera and takes some pictures when the mood strikes. Leo and Ted have not even brought cameras. That leaves me and my new DSLR to take as many pictures as possible, which suits me fine. I would take lots of pictures on a trip like this regardless of any other factors, but knowing that I am responsible for the primary (and in many cases only) photographic record of the trip makes me that much more conscientious about taking as many pictures as possible. As a result, since I tend to stop frequently to take a picture or three, I am generally the one bringing up the rear and calling out "wait for me, guys!".

12:07pm - We are at the halfway point.

12:10pm - Down into the stream valley. The write-ups on this hike are that the first part is prairie grasslands and the second part is riparian stream valley, and we have reached the second part of the hike. As we get into the wooded section of the hike, we come across the only other hikers we will see that day, who have stopped to watch a bison across the valley with a telescope. We stop to check out the bison as well, but there isn't too much to see, as it appears to be a large male in the tree line several hundred yards across the valley. It is an impressive sight, but we will soon see one much closer up.

12:18pm - We reach a stream crossing, and are confronted with a dilemma. The stream ahead of us is not a major obstacle, and can be crossed easily, but another thirty or forty yards past the fording spot seems to be the bedding down location of a single very large bison. My first instinct is to be as quiet as possible while we figure out what to do. Leo's first instinct is to yell at the bison so as to let it know we are there and not surprise it (which he does). The bison doesn't move at all.

We stop and debate the options. Crossing the stream and going to the right around the bison is option number one, which would put us behind it, but does have the drawback of pinning us between it and the stream should things go bad. Option number two is to ford the stream and then go left up the hill and around it to its front. This has the downside of being in its field of vision, but has the benefit of putting us nearer the tree line should we need to seek shelter from the bison's unwanted attentions. I believe that I am the only one who wanted to go to the right, so next thing I know we were crossing the stream and going off to the left up the hill. I am keeping a wary eye on the bison, but it never so much as flinches. The worst part of this choice, and the part that will worry me for the next day or two, is that the "go left up the hill" choice leads us through an unavoidable field of thigh-high poison ivy. And I am wearing shorts. As a kid, I caught poison ivy very easily, and all I can imagine as I wade through the poison ivy jungle is "red, swollen and itchy from ankle to thigh for the next week or two."

The more immediate concern though is the bison. As we crash through the underbrush around and in front of it, it never moves. I think that it is either a very sound sleeper in the middle of the day, or it is sick, or maybe even dead. The "maybe it's dead" theory seems more possible as we pass in front of it and it never so much as twitches, in addition to the smell of something dead that we all detect. The "dead or not dead" debate will continue for a while after we move out of the area, as something in the general vicinity was clearly dead, but something the size of a dead bison would probably be unmistakable and render all debate a moot point. Regardless, we march on in the sweltering 100 degree heat.

12:33pm - Nearing the end of the hike. And it can't come soon enough for me. We are only completing a 4 mile loop, but the unrelenting sun and the oppressive heat make this a much more taxing hike than it might otherwise be. I have done 7 or 8 mile hikes that seemed easier than this. Part of this, I suppose, is expectation. And my expectation of this hike, not accounting for the heat, was that this would be a "stretch the legs" hike. Despite the relative flatness of the ground, there was nothing easy about this hike on this day.

12:57pm - We climb the last hill and reach the parking lot and our van exactly two hours to the minute after setting out. I am tired and hot, but happy. There is a certain kind of satisfaction to be gained by completing something that requires physical exertion, and this hike was more difficult than the mileage would indicate. Not so much on the legs, but 100 degree heat will sap your energy fairly quickly, and this pretty well exhausted me.

A look at the GPS track when we get back home shows that this hike was 4.8 miles, or about three quarters of a mile longer than the guidebook indicated.

Next... Mount Rushmore and on to Sylvan Lakes

Wind Cave, South Dakota

Dakotas Day 3 - Sunday July 31, 2011 (Part 2)

8:40am - We arrive at the outdoor pavilion that is the meeting place for the "Natural Entrance Tour" of Wind Cave in Wind Cave National Park. As I have said before, at this point I am a bit apprehensive at the prospect of an hour and fifteen minutes underground. I am not overly claustrophobic per se, but don't relish the prospect of terribly closed-in spaces. Having read the descriptions of this tour in the guidebooks, I am convinced that it will not be anything too strenuous or confining. Hopefully this will prove to be true. I did read one of the other tour descriptions that sent a chill down my spine - 4 hours underground on a tour that will have you crawling most of the time and squeezing through narrow openings. That is precisely what I am not looking for. I am all for adventure of the right kind, but for me that is absolutely not the right kind.

Natural entrance

There seem to be about a dozen people waiting for the ranger to show up, and the final count will end up being 14. This is a great number, as we are told that the normal size for this tour later in the day (this is the first of the morning) is closer to 40 people. After a short wait the ranger shows up and gives us some general background. All the important factual stuff can be found on the National Park Service website here, but the highlights are that Wind Cave is the fifth largest cave in the world (at the moment), with over 130 miles of explored and mapped passages and rooms, all of which are located under one square mile of the park. The amazing part is that scientists estimate that as little as 5% or so of the cave has been explored thus far. They apparently arrive at this estimate by volumetric analysis of the air movements, working backwards to how large they think the cave complex must be, and how much is known at this time. If this is true, there could be over 2,500 miles of cave down there. Which is hard to imagine.

The cave is a "breathing" cave with only one known natural entrance. By breathing, they mean that air does not go in at one place and out another, passing through the cave, but rather only goes in and out through the one opening. When the air pressure inside is higher than the pressure outside, air rushes out of the cave. When the pressure inside is lower, air rushes in. Winds in excess of 40 mph have been recorded at the opening. It is not yet 9:00am, and it is already getting hot, but at least for the first part of the day we will be nice and cool; the constant temperature in the cave is 53 degrees F year 'round. We will be longing for any shade or cool later in the day (and not finding it), but that is a story for the next post.

Boxwork

The actual tour itself begins with a walk past the modern man-made entrance to the one natural entrance. In the picture, it is the dark spot about the size of the rim of a cowboy hat. Perhaps 12 by 16 inches. My shadow gives a good indication of the size. Or lack of size. Which leads me back to my fear of cramped spaces... what possessed someone to wiggle down through that opening into the unknown is beyond me, but explore they did. By candle light, with no modern conveniences. Yikes. On this particular day, the pressure inside was a little bit higher, as a ribbon held at the opening by the ranger blew outward, but not excessively so.


After visiting the natural entrance, we went back the man made entrance, which a revolving door (to keep from affecting the air pressure inside), and a couple of hundred stairs down. We had what would turn out to be a very nice malfunction at this point, as the lights inside the cave were out. The ranger handed out flashlights, and down we went. And down some more.


One of the scenic highlights of the cave, and the thing for which this cave is famous, is the boxwork. Boxwork is a cave formation of crosshatched lines (shown in the picture) which are believed to form from harder mineral deposits forming in fissures in the limestone. The softer limestone erodes away, leaving only the mineral deposits. However it forms, the majority of the world's known boxwork formations are in this one cave.


The ranger told us that Wind Cave is not a wet cave, as many are, and this turned out to be true. The walk we had was mostly dry, and was entirely on a poured concrete path with ramps and stairs where needed. I guess this may have made the tour seem over-sterilized to some, but I was enough in awe of the sights that it didn't detract from the experience for me at all. Not having the electric lighting for the first half of the tour lent a much more intimate and natural feel to things. In retrospect, I wouldn't have had it any other way. They run a candlelight tour, and based on our experience, I think I would recommend that tour sight-unseen. Call it ambience or whatever, but being down in the cave with a candle or a flashlight is definitely better than being there with the whole array of "mood lighting" that the NPS has set up for the tourists.

Dave, Leo and Eric

The flashlights did also provide a running joke for the rest of the trip. Our ranger was a young lady who took the behavior of her tour members very seriously. One little boy had a habit of shining his flashlight in places that she asked him multiple times not to, like in her face and other guests' faces. By the time the flashlights were no longer necessary, she seemed about ready to stuff one up his nose. Sideways. (Personally, I think we would have stuffed it up the nose of the parents who were completely oblivious to the misbehavior of their child, but maybe that was just us...). Anyway, for the rest of the trip, any questionable behavior was met with a comment along the lines of "don't make me do horrible things to you with this flashlight, little boy".


9:50am - All too soon, we had reached the conclusion of the tour, which ended rather abruptly with our arrival at the elevator lobby that would take us back to the surface. And out we go.


I am very glad that things worked out such that all four of us were able to take this cave tour, and we weren't forced by time constraints to choose one or the other and split up. I for one would have chosen to hike a trail above ground rather than do this, and if so I would have missed something special. I am also very glad that I did not give in to my instinct to bail out and not do this tour regardless of having the time. I admit I came fairly close to doing so. I really don't like overly cramped spaces...


Next...Hiking in a much hotter place.

Morning in South Dakota

Dakotas Day 3 - Sunday July 31, 2011 (Part 1)

5:33am - I hear Leo and Ted get out of their tent, and I am lying awake in my sleeping bag, so I get up as well. It is light out, but the sun is not over the nearby hills yet. It is nice in the early morning hours. I slept better than I expected to, partly I guess because I was tired, but also because the overnight temperatures were cool making for perfect sleeping weather. One thing I did not notice here that I did on our Pennsylvania backpacking trip last summer was critters rooting around camp during the night. Something may have come by, but I certainly didn't hear it. Soon the sun does come up over the hills and it is a beautiful and peaceful sight.

7:01am - Camp is dismantled since this is the only night we will spend here. Leo and Ted are cooking bacon and eggs in a frying pan over the fire, and the results are fantastic. As simple as the food is, I am becoming convinced that everything tastes better outdoors. While they finish cooking, I take a "shower" in the sink of the men's latrine, and get changed into clean clothes. I am a bit finicky and this whole lack of a real shower thing is going to take some getting used to. In retrospect, at the end of the trip, this is the one thing that I never really will have gotten used to at all. I don't feel entirely human until I get my shower in the morning. And by shower, I don't mean dumping water over my head from an empty Gatorade bottle.

We had two choices for what we could do with the six or seven hours we could spend here before needing to head to the next stop at Sylvan Lake campground via Mount Rushmore. Option one was to take a ranger-led tour of Wind Cave itself, and the other option was to do a short hike. Looking at the timing of things, we all decided that rather than each person choose which they wanted to do, we would all squeeze in both. I will admit to being apprehensive about the idea of being underground for an extended period of time. I have been on a couple of geology field trips in college that went into old coal mines, but that was for short periods of time and the spaces were never that enclosed. I am not claustrophobic as far as I know, but this would be a bad way to find out.

8:00am - We have an extra 20 minutes or so before we need to get to the Visitor Center to sign up for the 8:40am tour (which would last 1 hour and 15 minutes), so we drive around the area, and I get to see my first view of real bison in the wild (or semi-wild...). They are big from a distance, and downright huge when they are playing five feet from the side of the road. This was the first of several occasions on this trip when I would have to get by bison blocking a road, and it was nerve wracking. You would be waiting forever if you waited until they wandered off, and they tend to be fairly docile in general, but I always had this fear that at the exact moment that I chose to try to sneak slowly by them some big bull would decide to charge the van. I don't know if this ever does happen, but it didn't happen to us.

We also see a few different kind of deer, something that looks like an antelope, and lots of birds. There is a lot of wildlife active on the grasslands this morning, and it is great to see.

Next... Wind Cave

Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, and on to South Dakota

Dakotas Day 2 - Saturday July 30, 2011

Prelude
6:00am - I am awakened by a text message from my little one, Grace, who doesn't realize that 8:00am where she is is only 6:00am where I am. I fitfully return to sleep for a little while.

6:50am - We wake for good, get a nice hot shower, which will be a luxury in the coming days, and load our baggage in the van. We have plenty of space as we have not yet bought our food, nor the coolers which we store it in, and a number of other "buy and leave" items; things which we could not bring on the plane, will want while we are here, and will not be able to bring back. This whole idea of buy it, use it for a week, and then throw it away, is unfortunate, but cannot really be avoided, as the cost of shipping these things to or from home would be far more than the value of the items themselves.

7:40am - We leave the hotel and Dave and I get a Colorado geocache right down the street. This is a new state for both of us, and the 5- to 10 minute detours for caches here and there will happen a number of times on the trip. We make the short drive to Walmart and shop.

9:30am - We leave Walmart $495 poorer, but with a van full of coolers, food, camp chairs, drinks, and miscellaneous minor camping items. This shopping run will carry us through most of the week, with a few small stops to replenish ice, water and drinks, and a few other essentials.

10:20am - A stop at McDonald's in Cheyenne, Wyoming for a fast food breakfast. Mine is an Egg McMuffin and a large coffee; alright if you don't do it very often. This is perhaps a precursor of things to come as we will be eating lots of fast food and quick meals while on the road, and easy things like grilled hot dogs and cold cut sandwiches in camp and on the trails. Not many green things will be eaten in the next week other than a few pickles.

Scotts Bluff, Nebraska
12:00pm - Arrival at Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. Dave and I find a Nebraska geocache, and then we proceed to the National Monument. I know almost nothing about this site other than that Ted picked it out as a place to see on the way to South Dakota, in a location that would break our drive in half nicely.

12:15pm - We can get to the top of Scotts Bluff one of two ways - driving or hiking. Everyone is anxious to stretch their legs, so we opt to hike the Saddle Rock Trail, which is an out-and-back of 1.6 miles each way. It is sunny and hot as we set out, and by the time we are done, we are sweaty, hot and thirsty. But it feels good to be here doing what we came to do - hiking and seeing the sights.

The hike itself is a surprisingly nice one. It starts with an easy walk through open grasslands to the foot of the Bluff. The trail then climbs the bluff at a moderate slope via a number of switchbacks. At the top of the near-side switchback, it passes through a tunnel high in the bluff and finishes its climb to the top on the far side. Almost all of the hike is in direct sun, and the temperature is in the high 90's, so I am sweating profusely and huffing and puffing a bit by the time we get to the top. This will be a constant in my hiking this week (and always is); I get winded easily on climbs but do recover pretty quickly.

The view from the top of the Bluff is amazing. From what I have read, you can see four different states from the top on a clear day. Today is a clear day, and it does seem like you can see forever. This is another phenomena that will reoccur this week. Big Sky country is exactly that. Flat or undulating ground and a horizon that can seem to go forever.


2:15pm - We complete the 3.2 mile round trip hike, with photo and sightseeing stops, in exactly two hours and reload the van for the drive north into South Dakota. I am hot, sweaty, and a little tired, but it feels terrific. One thing that I am adding here after Dave remarked on it in his blog is that we had a slight scare when we got back to the van after our hike. It seems that we left one of the van's side doors wide open the entire time we were gone. An entire van full of camping gear, luggage, food, beverages and cell phones and ipods was there for the taking. Nobody took anything. As Dave so rightly noted, the Patron Saint of Idiots was surely watching over us.

South Dakota
4:45pm - We stop in Hot Springs, SD for my first South Dakota geocache, making three new states today.

5:15pm - We arrive at the Elk Mountain campground, a first come first served campground, and the only one in Wind Cave National Park. We have no trouble finding a lovely spot, and set up camp for our first night in tents.

6:15pm - Camp is set.

6:45pm - Leo is making a fire to cook dinner. A big fire. Dinner is a simple one of grilled cheeseburgers, but food has rarely tasted so good. I suppose this is a combination of the earlier exertion, the camaraderie, and just something about cooking food at the camp fire. I am happy.

There is no cell service where we are, which is a good and bad thing. Even on a trip such as this I like to feel connected. Some would consider this sacrilege, but I do not think sending the occasional text message spoils the "outdoors and away from it all" feeling for me. For some it certainly does.

Warning signs on the latrine building warn of rattlesnakes and mountain lions. For rattlesnakes, the general advice is get away as quickly as you can. Makes sense to me. For mountain lions (a rarity), the advice is to "make yourself big" but do not run. This will become a running joke for the remainder of the trip, as all sorts of events and cirsumstances will met with the advice to "make yourself big".

When darkness finally comes, with it come as many stars as I have ever seen in one place. There is so little ambient light and background interference out here that the night sky is amazing. We could see the whitish band of the milky way itself, something that I have only seen a handful of times in my life. We also saw satellites in their orbits, and several shooting stars.

10:30pm - Bed time for me. What a great day.

An Inauspicious Beginning... Which Ends Well

Dakotas Day 1 - Friday July 29, 2011

The big day is here and I can't wait to get going. Since three of us live in the suburbs and one does not, the plan is that Dave and Leo will leave their cars at my house and I will drive to the airport, leaving my car at one of the offsite lots for the eight days we will be gone. Ted will meet us at the airport. Everyone is anxious to be on our way, so we decide to leave my house at 3pm-ish for a 6:40pm flight. We know we will be there very early, but can meet up and have a drink or two while discussing shopping plans for the next day. Our main provisioning stop of the trip will be at a Walmart Supercenter first thing tomorrow.

4:00pm - We get to the airport, check our bags, and meet Ted at Chickie's and Pete's for a couple drinks and some dinner (just crab fries for me). Spirits are high and it is immediately comfortable to be in the company of such old friends. Our 6:40pm flight is initially delayed until 7:15, but then is adjusted forward to 6:50. I am a bit of a worrier, and this is Southwest's last flight of the day to Denver, so if something goes wrong with this flight there is no later flight to be bumped to, which would mean a Saturday morning departure instead. But as Dave says, it's vacation time, we aren't working, and there is no need to worry about these things. Yet.

6:50pm - We board the flight on time and pull back from the gate only ten minutes behind schedule. Things are looking good. Then we taxi out and park on the runway for almost 2 hours without moving more than a few hundred yards every now and then. Apparently there are storms in our takeoff path, and we don't have another approved way out of Philadelphia, so we sit and wait. While we wait we learn that the Eagles have shockingly signed Nnamdi Asomugha, a star cornerback, and that the Phillies have equally shockingly traded for star outfielder Hunter Pence, so we have something to talk about while we wait.

8:35pm - We take off. Finally.

10:15pm (Mountain time from here forward until noted otherwise) - After an uneventful nearly four hours in the air, we land in Denver, get our bags, and proceed to the rental car counter to pick up our minivan. We have rented a late model Chrysler Town and Country minivan, and it will turn out to be a comfortable workhorse over the course of the next week. Now that we are on the ground in Denver, I consider the trip to have officially begun.

12:30am - We arrive at our hotel in Loveland Colorado, about an hour north of the airport, and near our Walmart stop tomorrow morning. It has been a long day.

1:00am - Lights out. It is the equivalent of 3:00am eastern time and I don't tend to sleep all that well in hotels, but I think I fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow.

Dakotas Tomorrow

It seems hard to believe, but after all this time waiting and planning, our Dakotas trip begins tomorrow with a flight to Denver in the evening. I am in good shape to be ready to go, and there isn't much left to be done other than to wrap up some loose ends at work, pack for real, and wait out the mild butterflies of anticipation. I also have a little bit of remaining planning for geocaches during the trip, but I did most of that last night.

There are a few minor items that I might want to bring that I do not have, so I might run out at some point today and do a little shopping. But if I don't get around to it, it doesn't matter.

One more day.

Dakotas Trip - 10 Days to Blast Off!!!

It seems like just a few moments ago that I was posting about "11 weeks to go" on this trip, and now it is 10 days from our departure. I am excited. And a bit nervous. And a little overwhelmed. And a bit nervous. And a lot of other feelings too. But mainly excited.

There were a number of things that I wanted to have a good handle on prior to the trip, and I can't say as though I feel like I have done an especially good job on any of them.

I wanted to finally buy a digital SLR camera and learn how to use it well. I have bought the camera, and used it a little, but I can't say as though I have put the time into learning how to use it as thoroughly as I would have liked. I will bring the user guide booklet with me, but will be relying mainly on the fact that this new camera is way smarter than me, and I can set everything to full automatic and use it as a very expensive point-and-shoot and the pictures will be great. "Artistic" may have to wait for another day. A new UV filter and a circular polarizer filter have arrived courtesy of Amazon, so I will have a few new things to play with, and the extra battery is overkill, but what the heck...

I wanted to be the proactive anal-retentive person that I normally am and be very ahead of schedule in terms of reviewing my gear, packing lists, and all the other "prep" kind of tasks. I haven't really done that. Which is not really an issue. I am reviewing my packing list as I type this, and have plenty of time to get the last couple of items that I could use. So no issue there, really.

The biggest thing that concerns me, and Dave echoed this sentiment in a recent blog post of his, is that I had really wanted to spend a good amount of trail time working on my conditioning and my legs, and I haven't done that at all. Quite the contrary, I have probably spent less trail time this year than I have each of the past couple of years. So I have good reason to be concerned about that.

But... the important thing is that we are ten days away from what should be one of the trips of a lifetime for me, and I can't wait!

Anticipation

Knowing that we are going to be in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park's North Unit as one of the highlights of our Dakotas trip, I have "liked" the TRNP page on Facebook. It has been fun to see the updates and pictures they post. Feet after feet after feet of snow in the winter with subsequent park closings. Blizzards in May. Bison calves being born. Prairie dog communities coming to life with the spring. All amazing stuff.

And then today they posted this photo.

Wow. For those of you counting along at home, it is 10 weeks and a day to blast off, and after seeing this, it just can't come soon enough. My main exposure to this kind of terrain (by which I mean basically anything not temperate woodlands with a little tropical "beachy" time mixed in) has been from the window seat of an airplane. Having the chance to hike and camp in this kind of country will be an otherworldly experience, quite literally. I am awed and a little intimidated by how different this will be, but am looking forward to it very much.

This is exactly the kind of scene I envisioned when I decided it might be a good idea to finally get around to buying that new camera. I have been reading the user guide the last couple of evenings, and have been dreaming of the photo opportunities that we will have. Which reminds me of an impulse bid placed on a nice Canon telephoto lens to go with the new camera over on eBay, which I should go check on. Not that I'll win it. Nobody ever accidently wins something on eBay after a low-ball bid, right Dave?...