Wind Cave breathes: the small natural entrance in the Black Hills exhales and inhales with the pressure of the world's seventh-longest cave, and to the Lakota that breath is the place where their people emerged into this world. The National Park Service hosts the Lakota Emergence Story on its own site, and federal law directs the park to interpret the history of the Sioux Nation alongside the cave. Scholars record the Lakota name as Washun Niya, the breathing place. The cave was set aside as a national park in 1903, the first cave in the world so protected, and is celebrated for its rare boxwork formations.

Below, ranger-guided tours walk the passages on ticketed routes; above, the park's prairie carries bison, elk and trails, open without cave tickets. Tours resumed in January 2025 after a year-long elevator replacement, with brief interruptions since, so current status is worth checking.

Visiting

Wind Cave National Park (26611 US Highway 385, Hot Springs SD): cave entry by ranger-guided tour only, reserved through recreation.gov (Natural Entrance and Garden of Eden are the standard tours); visitor center 8am to 4:30pm; the surface area is open without tickets.

Photo: The natural entrance, [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Natural_entrance_to_Wind_Cave_(Black_Hills,_South_Dakota,_USA)_1.jpg), CC BY 2.0, James St. John.

Associated traditions & practices

Native American Traditions Ancestor Work Sacred Site Pilgrimage