Jewel Cave National Monument

Our friends arrived at 10:30 on Thursday morning. We drove into Custer and ate lunch at Baker’s Bakery, then headed west to Jewel Cave National Monument. We bought tickets for the Scenic Tour, which meant that we had almost two hours to kill. The visitor center was tiny and only took a few minutes to cover. We walked a short trail, then sat on a deck overlooking the park — much of which was devastated by a forest fire in 2000.

Outside the front door there was a cement block with a hole through it. A sign informed us that, in order to go on the wild cave tour, we had to fit through the hole.

I knew I had very little chance to get through, but it occurred to me that it might make a good Red Chair photo. The chair fit through no problem. I only got as far as this:

Jewel Cave is even longer than Wind Cave. As of this writing, it has somewhere around 160 miles of explored passages, making it second in the world only to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. The passages branch off each other and stack on top of each other much like those in Wind Cave. There is a much greater variety of formations in Jewel Cave, with popcorn being especially in abundance.

 Much of the tour route was covered with metal stairs and walkways. Jewel Cave was much more open than Wind Cave, with some very large rooms. I haven’t learned how to use my new camera well enough yet to get it to take photos in very low light, so many of these photos were taken by the light of the guide’s flashlight as he pointed out various features.

 

The two most interesting formations were this soda straw (above, right) and cave bacon (below).

I don’t dislike touring caves, but I find them all to be pretty much the same experience. Of course, this tour also included the “turn off the lights to see how dark it is” bit.

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1 Response to Jewel Cave National Monument

  1. jeff says:

    Yeah, but it is like totally dark

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