Wind Cave: Guided Cave Tours Suspended After Phone System Outage

If you're planning a trip down into Wind Cave, here's something to know before you lock in a date: guided tours are suspended right now. The reason is an outage in the emergency phone system. The park has put all tours on hold as a safety measure until communications are back up.

In practical terms, the outage has knocked out every line inside the cave, along with the lines in the elevator that takes you down. That internal network isn't a nice-to-have. It's what lets a crew reach the surface and call for help if something goes wrong underground. Without it, a team couldn't sound the alarm quickly if there were a problem. So it makes sense that the park would rather close the tours than send visitors down without that safety net.

For you, that means no cave tour is running at the moment, whatever the usual option would have been. We'd suggest not counting on getting underground until things are back to normal. If the cave is the heart of your stop, keep some give in your plans and line up a backup on the surface, among the park's prairies, trails, and wildlife.

The good news on the reopening: as soon as emergency phone service is restored, tours will start back up. The park says tickets will then be handed out at the visitor center on a first-come, first-served basis. So there's no reservation to lock in ahead of time for these departures. It all happens on-site, the same day. Showing up early is still your best bet if you don't want to watch the slots fill before you get one.

Before you head out, get up to speed on hours, access, and the other things worth seeing on the surface in the Wind Cave park guide. We'll update this brief as soon as cave tours officially resume.