See all of the camping and backpacking rental gear we can ship to you for your National Park trip!

On your next trip to Wind Cave National Park, escape the crowds at lodges and hotels and enjoy the outdoors as it was meant to be – either camping in a nearby campground or backpacking into the wilderness. When you hire our backpacking or camping gear, you’ll see how much money you can save by renting rather than buying. Rental of backpacking and camping gear for Wind Cave National Park is easy; just click on the “Rent Online” tab above to get started. You can rent camping lanterns, GPS Trackers, tents, backpacks, sleeping gear, cooking gear – everything you need for a great outdoor experience. We also have new gear for sale as well as any supplies and accessories you might need for your national park adventure.

We’ll ship your rented camping gear direct to your home before your trip, or to a convenient location inside the park or near the entrance to Wind Cave National Park. On your way back home, just load the rented backpacking and camping gear back into the same box we shipped to you, use the prepaid return label, and drop off the rental at one of our carrier’s shipping points.

Here’s some information you may find useful before your trip (sourced from Wikipedia and other research):

Wind Cave National Park is an American national park located 10 miles north of the town of Hot Springs in western South Dakota. Established in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, it was the seventh national park and the first cave to be designated a national park anywhere in the world. The cave is notable for its calcite formations known as boxwork, as well as its frostwork. Approximately 95 percent of the world's discovered boxwork formations are found in Wind Cave. The cave is recognized as the densest cave system in the world, with the greatest passage volume per cubic mile. Wind Cave is one of the longest caves in the world with 149.01 miles of explored cave passageways, as of 2018. Above ground, the park includes the largest remaining natural mixed-grass prairie in the United States. Wind Cave National Park is in the southwestern corner of South Dakota. It's known for the vast, underground Wind Cave, with chambers like the Post Office and the Elks Room. Many of the cave’s walls are rich in honeycomb-shaped calcite formations known as boxwork. The park's prairie and pine forests are home to bison, elk and pronghorn antelopes. Trails include Rankin Ridge, with views of the Black Hills.

In many places within Wind Cave National Park there may not be any cell phone service. To stay in touch with those back home no matter where you travel, rent one of our Satellite GPS Messenger devices .

The three levels making up the Wind Cave system are located in the upper 76 m of the Mississippian Pahasapa (Madison) Limestone. Deposited in an inland sea, chert, gypsum, and anhydrite lenses within the limestone are evidence of high periods of evaporation. When sea levels dropped at the end of the Mississippian, dissolution of the limestone formed a Kaskaskia paleokarst terrain, complete with solution fissures, sinkholes, and caves. Thus, an unconformity exists between this limestone and the overlying Pennsylvanian Minnelusa Formation. These red sands and clays filled in cavities. Those cavities not filled in were coated in dogtooth spar. Subsequent deposition of the Permian Opeche Shale, Permian Minnekahta Limestone, Triassic Spearfish Formation, and Tertiary White river Group followed. Paleocene and Eocene erosion removed these overlying sediments, in the area of the caves, down to the Minnelusa. Geologic uplift started during the Laramide Orogeny, which lowered the water table, draining the cave system and enlarging it. Today the water level is 150 m below the surface, which amounts to a drop of 0.4 m every 1000 years. The Lakota, Cheyenne, and other Native American tribes who travelled through the area were aware of the cave's existence, as were early Euro-American settlers, but there has been no evidence yet discovered that anyone actually entered it. The Lakota, an indigenous people who live in the Black Hills region of South Dakota, spoke of a hole that blew air, a place they consider sacred as the site where they first emerged from the underworld where they had lived before the demiurge creation of the world. The first documented discovery of the cave by white Americans was in 1881, when the brothers Tom and Jesse Bingham heard wind rushing out from a 10-inch by 14-inch hole in the ground. According to the story, when Tom looked into the hole, the wind (exiting cave air) blew his hat off of his head. The cave maintains a temperature of roughly 53° F (12° C) throughout the year. In the above-ground portion of the park, temperatures and precipitation are similar to that of the semi-arid surrounding region, with cold temperatures (and occasional waves of warm weather) during the winter and warm, occasionally very hot conditions during the summer.

If you are interested in renting gear for camping or backpacking in or around any national park, just give us a call at 480-348-8917 or browse our rental gear above.

From 1881 to 1889, few people ventured far into Wind Cave. Then in 1889 the South Dakota Mining Company hired Jesse D. McDonald to oversee their mining claim on the cave site. The South Dakota Mining Company may have hoped to find valuable minerals, or it may have had commercial development of the cave in mind from the start. No valuable mineral deposits were found, and the McDonald family began developing the cave for tourism. Jesse initially hired his son Alvin (age 16 in 1890) and, beginning in 1891, Alvin's brother Elmer, to explore and help develop the cave. Alvin fell in love with the cave and kept a cave diary. Others who worked at Wind Cave and helped explore it between 1890 and 1903 include Katie Stabler, Emma McDonald (Elmer's wife), Inez McDonald (Emma and Elmer's daughter), and Tommy McDonald (brother of Elmer and Alvin).

To learn more about this national park, visit at their wiki web page .

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