Friday, August 15th, we drove south to Hot Springs and the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, which covers 11,000 acres of land and has over 500 rescued mustangs running free. We arrived just in time for the 11:00, 2-hour tour to experience the horses up close. The Institute of Range and American Mustang (IRAM) founded by Dayton O Hyde in 1988 is a non-profit organization registered in the state of South Dakota. Over 25 years ago Dayton left his ranch in Oregon and headed off to find a place in the West where there was land enough and grass enough to set-up a wild horse sanctuary so that the unadoptable horses could run wild and free. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) round up and capture the wild horses with helicopters because their numbers on the range have exceeded their food supply and place them in holding facilities. These horses are born to be wild and are meant to be free. Dayton wanted to help the horses to escape.
The Wild Horses Sanctuary is set in the most beautiful area of the Black Hills with wind swept prairies and dark pine forests overlooking the Cheyenne River twisting its way through the valley. We stopped several times to get out and experience the different horses that gathered together. We saw the Choctaw Indian ponies, the Spanish Mustangs and the American Mustangs running wild and free. As you can see from the photos these are “America’s luckiest wild horses”!
Ten miles north of Hot Springs we stopped at the Wind Cave National Park. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt as the 7th National Park and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. It was first opened to visitors in 1892 and cost $1 for admission. The cave is currently the 6th longest in the world with 140 miles of explored cave passageways. The cave is notable for for its displays of the calcite formations known as “boxwork”.
The Visitor Center sits on top of the cave where we got our tickets for the tour, the start of the tour we could feel the air (wind) blowing from the original entrance to the cave, a 10 by 14 inch hole in the ground. We walked in a single file through narrow passageways looking at the boxwork formations. At one stop the Ranger turned off his light and lit a candle to show us how the first explorers found their way through the narrow openings, not very bright!