Wind Cave National Park Bingo

The cave itself. To the Lakota it is Oniya Oshoka, where the earth breathes inside. You reach it by tour, with a ranger.

The cave is Oniya Oshoka, "where the earth breathes inside," and Maka Oniye, "breathing earth," to the Lakota: a foundational site in the emergence account, whe…

Brown, shaggy, grazing on the prairie beside Highway 385. They have the right of way. Stay in the car.

A bison can run about 35 miles an hour and jump a fence about 5 feet high, which is surprising for an animal the size of a car.

Thin calcite fins crossing each other into open boxes on the cave ceiling. Wind Cave holds most of the boxwork known on Earth.

Reddish-brown calcite fins that intersect into open-ended boxes lining the cave's ceilings and walls, formed when calcite veins in old fractures outlasted the l…

A ground squirrel, not a dog. Watch one stand straight up on its back legs and bark at the car.

Prairie dogs do not just bark, they bark specifics. Different threats get different call patterns, and researchers studying their calls believe the animals can encode the kind of predator approaching, not only that something is coming.

Over 33,000 acres of it on the roof of the cave. Short grass and tall grass growing in the same field.

Above the cave, the park protects more than 33,000 acres of the mixed-grass prairie the NPS calls the largest remaining tract of natural mixed-grass prairie in…

Hold a hand at the natural entrance. Air moves in or out depending on the air pressure outside. Ask a ranger which way it is going today.

Tan and white, built to run, usually far out in the grass. Look for the white rump patch before you see the rest.

A pronghorn can hold about 55 miles an hour for half a mile and close to 45 mph over much longer distances, the fastest sustained speed of any land animal in the Western Hemisphere.

Bare mounds and clipped grass along Highway 385 and Highway 87. Listen for one bark passing mound to mound.

Black-tailed prairie dog colonies line Highway 385 and Highway 87, and they are the easiest wildlife stop with kids: pull over, stay in or beside the car, and w…

Get close enough that the fins fill the frame and you lose the rest of the ceiling. Flash off if the ranger says so.

The short one: about an hour, roughly 150 stairs, down and back up by elevator. The easiest way into the cave.

The shortest and easiest tour into Oniya Oshoka: about an hour, roughly 150 stairs, with the historic 1934 elevator down and up.

Every tour has a stair count. Pick yours, count as you go, then check the number against the tour sign.

The surface road across the park's prairie. Bison, pronghorn and prairie dogs share the same few miles of it.

US Highway 385 and Highway 87 cross the park's prairie, and this is the surface "viewpoint" most visitors actually use, since many Wind Cave visits are wildlife…

Pick up the booklet at the visitor center, finish the pages for your age, and get sworn in by a ranger.

The high point of the park, about 5,013 feet, with a fire tower on top and a one-mile loop to reach it.

The high point of the park at 5,013 ft per the base dossier (an elevation worth re-checking against a current NPS page), reached by a 1-mile loop that climbs to…

Frame as many mounds as you can in one shot, with at least one prairie dog standing up in it.

Oniya Oshoka and Maka Oniye, breathing earth. Say both out loud before you go underground.

It adjoins Wind Cave on the north. The Wildlife Loop Road carries its own bison herd, and no NPS pass is needed.

Custer State Park adjoins Wind Cave on the north, and together the two hold a large block of the Black Hills (He Sapa) that the 1980 Supreme Court decision foun…

Turn until nothing made by a person is in the frame. Grass, sky, maybe a pine ridge. Take the shot.

A shallow bare dish in the dirt where a bison has rolled. Once you spot one you will spot ten.

Bison shed in clumps and leave it on fence wire and bark. Photograph a tuft still stuck where it came off.

The Rankin Ridge tower steps are open when staffed. Count the ridges you can see from the top.

Pronghorn go under a fence, not over it. If you find one at a fence line, photograph how it gets through.

The wind at the entrance tracks the barometer. Ask a ranger whether the cave is breathing in or out, and why.

Stand where the prairie meets the visitor center and shoot the grass above the cave. The park is both at once.