Dakotas Trip -- Wind Cave and Mammoth Site

American Bison, Wind Cave National Park

Caty and I took a little trip in late July to visit some new National Parks (and a new state – North Dakota) -- for her.

Me in 2006

It also gave me a chance to better explore Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which I had briefly visited in 2006 when I went to my 50^th state – also North Dakota. 

Our itinerary included Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt National Park (North and South Units) in North Dakota, Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site in North Dakota and Badlands National Park in South Dakota. 

As it turned out, we were also able to visit The Mammoth Site in South Dakota and Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in Nebraska. It was a really fun trip with more geology and paleontology than wildlife.

Wind Cave National Park
We started out on a Friday, driving through Wyoming to Hot Springs, South Dakota. Our first stop was Wind Cave National Park, which is 10 miles north of Hot Springs. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt (he plays a big role in this vacation), Wind Cave was the seventh U.S. National Park and the first cave to be designated a National Park anywhere in the world. 

"Popcorn," photo taken in 2006

Unlike most caves you may have visited, Wind Cave is primarily dry with no stalagmites or stalactites. Instead, it is known for containing about 95 percent of the world's known displays of a very rare calcite formation known as boxwork. 

Boxwork

It is also known for frostwork, formations that look like ice ... ... and dogtooth spar that looks like, well, dog’s teeth.

Frostwork; photo: National Park Service

Basically, a three-dimensional maze, Wind Cave is the densest (greatest passage volume per cubic mile) cave system in the world -- very much like a giant rock sponge. The cave is currently the sixth-longest in the world with almost 150 miles of explored cave passageways and most likely many more unexplored passageways.

Early Euro-American settlers and the Lakota, Cheyenne and other Native American tribes who traveled through the area were aware of the cave's existence.

The Lakotas believed it to be the place where their ancestors emerged from the underworld when the world was created. But there is no evidence that anyone entered it before 1881, when the brothers Tom and Jesse Bingham heard wind rushing out from a 10-by-14-inch hole in the ground. 

According to the story, when Tom looked into the hole, the exiting cave air blew his hat off of his head. When he later tried to recreate the event, the cave sucked his hat in. That’s because air continually moves in or out, equalizing the atmospheric pressure between the cave and the outside air. When the air pressure is higher outside, air flows in; when the air pressure is lower outside, air flows out. That’s why it is called Wind Cave.

Alvin; Photo: NPS

From 1881 to 1889, few people ventured far into Wind Cave. Then, the South Dakota Mining Company hired Jesse D. McDonald to oversee their "mining claim" on the cave site, although it is unclear whether they actually thought there were minerals or they wanted a jump on tourism. When no valuable mineral deposits were found, the McDonald family began developing the cave for tourists.

Jesse’s son Alvin (age 16 in 1890) took the most interest. In addition to leading tours, he extensively (almost obsessively) explored the cave, creating maps and keeping a very detailed diary.

By 1892 the cave was open for visitors, who followed a guide and each carried a lantern-like device consisting of a candle in bucket or just simply a candle with a reflector. 

The standard tour fee was apparently $1.00, a significant sum of money at the time. Early tours were physically demanding and sometimes involved crawling through narrow passages. Even today’s tours pass through some rather narrow areas (and some tours still require crawling). Unlike Mammoth or Carlsbad, Wind Cave doesn’t have many huge chambers.

Early tour; Photo: National Park Service

Caty and I took the Natural Entrance Tour, which is actually somewhat of a misnomer. Yes, you do visit the small natural entrance where Tom Bingham lost his hat, but you enter through a man-made portal and walk down almost 300 man-made steps to the middle level of the cave. Wind Cave's famous boxwork is abundant throughout this trip. We returned to the top via elevator.

Left, natural entrance; Photo: National Park Service; right, elevator exit

Other tours include the Garden of Eden Tour, which enters and leaves by the elevator and visits the upper level (I did this tour in 2006); the Fairgrounds Tour, which enters and exits by elevator, explores the upper and middle levels and includes 450 stairs along the route with one flight of 89 steps going up; the Candlelight Tour, which visits a less developed, unlighted section of the cave where each participant carries a candle bucket; and the Wild Cave Tour, which includes crawling through less developed areas. Fees range from $5.00 to $30.00 per person, depending on the tour and the participant’s age.

Our tour was fairly easy, but you had to make sure not to bump your head.

Overhanging rock

Boxwork, which was first discovered in Wind Cave, was created when gypsum and anhydrite filled small cracks in softer bedrock. Acidic water weakened the bedrock, allowing it to weather faster than the calcite, resulting in intersecting fins that protrude from the surrounding rock. It is extremely fragile and is, therefore, for viewing, NOT touching. Early tourists used to snap off pieces for souvenirs so it is obvious why this cave needs protection.

Boxwork

Above ground, Wind Cave National Park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States. 

Wind Cave National Park

The Wind Cave Bison Herd is one of only four free-roaming and genetically pure herds on public lands in North America (the other three herds are in Yellowstone, the Henry Mountains in Utah and on Elk Island in Alberta, Canada).

American Bison

It was a nice visit. We contemplated also visiting nearby Jewel Cave National Monument but decided to save that for another time. We had other things to see.  

The Mammoth Site

While in Hot Springs, we visited The Mammoth Site, a cool private educational facility and active paleontological excavation site. 

Worth seeing

I had visited The Mammoth Site by myself on a trip to visit my friend Becky in South Dakota in 2012 and I wanted to share it with Caty.

The Mammoth Site encloses a Pleistocene-era sinkhole that contains one of the greatest concentrations of mammoth remains in the world, including 59 North American Columbian Mammoths and two Woolly Mammoths. As a result, most of the focus is on the huge Columbians.

Beauty, an almost intact Columbian Mammoth skull

Columbian Mammoths inhabited North America as far north as the northern U.S. and as far south as Costa Rica during the Pleistocene epoch. Reaching 13 feet at the shoulders and 10 tons (22,000 lbs.) in weight, the Columbian Mammoth was one of the largest land mammals ever. It had long, curved tusks and four molars, which were replaced six times during its lifetime. It evolved from the even larger Steppe Mammoth, which entered North America from Asia about 1.5 million years ago. Pygmy Mammoths, whose remains have been found exclusively on the Channel Islands of California evolved from Columbian Mammoths. The closest extant relative of the Columbian and other mammoths is the Asian Elephant.

Columbian Mammoths; Photo: National Park Service

The Columbian Mammoth preferred open areas and fed on sedge, grass and other plants. It did not live in arctic regions, which were instead inhabited by Woolly Mammoths. 

Mammoth teeth

The ranges of the two species overlapped. For a few thousand years prior to their extinction, Columbian Mammoths co-existed with Woolly Mammoths in North America. Genetic evidence suggests that they interbred.

Paleoamericans -- the first humans to inhabit the Americas -- hunted them for food, used their bones for making tools and depicted them in art. 

The Columbian Mammoth disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene around 11,500 years ago, most likely as a result of habitat loss caused by climate change, hunting by humans or a combination of both.

Back to The Mammoth Site: why are so many mammoths – all male so far – found in this one site? During the Late Pleistocene, a steep-sided sinkhole about 65 feet deep and 120 feet wide at the surface formed when a limestone cavern collapsed. It filled with warm water percolating up from below the earth’s surface, which facilitated the growth of plants around the edges.

Headless Columbian Mammoth skeleton

Enticed by this warm water and pond vegetation, mammoths entered the pond to eat, drink or bathe. Because the steep Spearfish Shale sides were very slippery, mammoths were sometimes unable to climb out of the sinkhole. Trapped, they drowned in the pond or died of starvation or exhaustion.

Multiple carcasses

Observations of modern elephants' matriarchal societies, in which young male members are often expelled, have led scientists to conclude that the mammoths found at The Mammoth Site were inclined to the type of risk-taking behavior common in young males that led to their entrapment.

Size comparison chart

The hole slowly filled with silt over a period of 350-700 years, burying and preserving the bones. 

Eventually the sinkhole filled completely and the artesian spring diverted to the lower elevation of Fall River as it cut deeper in the valley floor. 

Over thousands of years, the "hardened mud plug" inside the sinkhole remained while the surrounding sediment eroded, turning what used to be a sinkhole into a hill.

In 1974, a construction worker unearthed bones while the area was being prepared for a new subdivision and his son recognized one of the finds as a mammoth tooth. Landowner Phil Anderson agreed to further investigation, and a complete skull and tusk were found. Anderson sold land containing the bone bed and mineral rights at cost to a newly formed The Mammoth Site nonprofit organization that is now a museum and a National Natural Landmark. It is also a very active excavation site.

Excavation tools

In addition to mammoths, the site also yielded the remains of Giant Short-Faced Bears, Shrub Oxen, American Camel, Llama, Wolves, Coyotes, Birds, Minks, Ferrets, Prairie Dogs, Voles, Moles, Clams, Snails and Slugs. 

Giant Short-Faced Bears, one of the other major finds at The Mammoth Site, were the most common early North American bear and one of the largest known terrestrial mammalian carnivores that has ever existed. They were tall enough to look a man in the eye, perhaps standing as tall as 12 feet.

Giant Short-Faced Bear skeleton

Giant Short-Faced Bears first appeared during the middle Pleistocene in North America, about 800,000 years ago, ranging from Alaska to Mississippi and it became extinct at the same time as Columbian Mammoths. 

Chart: Wide Open Spaces.com

Its name derives from its disproportionately short snout, compared to other bears. Long legs enabled it to run at 30-40 mph, allowing it to run down herbivores, such as wild Horses and Saiga Antelopes, earning it the name, "running bear." 

There is a lot of debate about whether such a large animal could run long enough to hunt that way. A 2010 study concluded that the species was neither a super-predator nor pure scavenger but an opportunistic omnivore like modern Brown Bears.

The Bones found at The Mammoth Site are real bones, not mineralized bones where the original organic material has been completely replaced. As a result, they are very fragile.

Beauty

Initially, The Mammoth Site sinkhole was estimated to be about 28,000 years old based on the type of remains and radiocarbon dating. Uranium dating yielded much older results, putting the bones at 128,966 B.P.

When Caty and I first pulled up to the site, it looked so different that I questioned my memory. When I first went, it was pretty rustic with a corrugated metal enclosure over the dig and outside bathrooms. Now, it has a beautiful Visitor Center and Theater (with indoor plumbing). When I first went, I walked through by myself. This time, Caty and I took a tour led by a young paleontologist.

Mammoth Site; photo taken in 2012

If you are heading to South Dakota, stop at the Mammoth Site. It is worth it. For more information about tours and education programs, click here. 

Trip date: July 20-25, 2018