Jewel Cave National Monument

Today, we took the opportunity to go discover the inside of Jewel Cave National Monument in historic Custer, South Dakota.  It turned out to be a good day to do this because it was a dark and stormy night last night and today wasn't all the greatest in terms of blue skies so another trip to do inside activities was just the ticket.

We didn't arrived until about 12:30 p.m. because I was up at 3:10 a.m. watching the Royal Wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle so at 7 a.m.  I went back to sleep for a couple more hours, then woke up, showered and did my hair so we got a bit of a late start to our day.

(Good Housekeeping Photo)

Once we were there, we were able to get tickets to the very last tour of the day called the Scenic Tour.  Tickets were $12 each and we didn't have to be back to the visitors center until 2:30 p.m.

We drove back to Custer and had lunch at the Purple Pie Place - a cute lunch and dinner restaurant that also fronts as an ice-cream parlor in the front of the house.  The place was an old house converted and painted pink and purple and quite noticeable.  There were plenty of people patronizing the business and we enjoyed lunch as well.  From the menu, Scott had their chicken pot pie and I had a turkey sandwich with clam chowder.  Scott also had a cherry pie.

Purple House

Purple Pig

Purple Porch

Front of the House Ice Cream - Dining Room was to the right

Dining Room

Scott's Chicken Pot Pie

Sue's Lunch

Pie Menu

The chairs were clear plastic - I'd never seen these before!

Even the flowers were purple!

After lunch, we headed back to Jewel Cave, we saw some fun wildlife - an Oreo cow!...

...and some bison and calves in a field.  Such majestic creatures!  And, the babies were romping and running around their mothers.

The Jewel Cave Visitor's Center is quite nice and there is a great deal of parking. There is plenty of room for cars and RVs alike and there are about 10-12 RV spots as well as one Handicapped RV area right at the Visitor's Center round about.  The Visitor's Center is wheelchair accessible however, the cave tours are not.

The Visitors Center has a lot of information throughout as well as a nice gift shop.  We bought the grandkids more postcards so those will go out in Monday's mail.  There were a good group of people there and some had to be turned away because the last tour was full, so we barely made it by the skin of our teeth!  Trivia Question:  True or False - All caves are below the ground?  Leave an answer on the comments on the bottom of this post and you'll be entered to win a prize.

The "Stamping Desk" for your Passport Books

Gear a spelunker would carry.

The types of rock in Jewel Cave are as follows:

DRAPERIES
Also called curtains, these curved pieces of calcite form on inclined walls and ceilings.
The Bacon Drapery along the Scenic Tour is over 20 feet long!

SCINTILLITES
These are made of tiny quartz crystals on fingers of eroded chert.

RIMSTONE DAMS
These calcite ridges are miniature rimstone dams, also known as "microgours".
They once captured tiny pools of water as it moved down a flowstone slope.

POPCORN
Popcorn formed when calcite was precipitated during evaporation of seeping or splashed water,
as seen at the Drip Hole along the Scenic Tour

DOGTOOTH SPAR
These small calcite crystals formed underwater and have sharp points like dog's teeth.
In Jewel Cave they are not as common as the larger nailhead spar.

FROSTWORK
My favorite.  These fragile formations resemble ice crysals
and grow in areas with lots of air flow.

Large piece of Dogtooth Spar.  It lights up amazingly!

Our ranger guide was Ranger Gregory.  We was much more formal than our previous Ranger Ben at Wind Cave.  He was more of a scholarly presenter and catered more to adults.  Scott and I met a little family from Billing, Montana.  The little girl was Rachel and the little boy, Rhett.  I was telling them how fun caves were and it seemed to helped subside their fears.  Once we took the elevator down 30 stories down to where we started our tour, poor Rachel was a wreck but I kept encouraging her and by the time the tour was over, she was high-fiving me because she had such a great time.  That made me happy.

Historically, in the early 1900, South Dakota brothers, Frank and Albert Michaud heard wind rustling through a hole in rocks in Hell Canyon.  Enlarging the hole, they entered an underground world of sparkling crystals.  They tried to make a go of tourist to see it but they never turned a profit and in 1908, Jewel Cave became a National Monument.  It wasn't until the 1959 when rock climbers Herb and Jan Conn joined an expedition into the cave and they were so captivated with Jewel Cave, they devoted the next 21 years of their lives taking 708 expeditions and mapping the cave spending about 12-14 hours at a time underground.  Using hard hats, carbide lamps, gloves, loose fatigues, elbow and knee pads and boots, they squeezed, crawled and climbed through Jewel Cave's complex maze.

Herb and Jan Conn - 1959
(Wiki photo)

The cave has 723 stairs and it was simply amazing!  I LOVED all the formations, the lightening was bright, the stairs were consecutive with double hand holds, which made it easy to traverse, and the areas were in the cave were very vast and extremely large.  I think this has been my most favorite cave of all time because of the vast array of color and rocks formations.

As I mentioned, we took the elevator to 30 stories below us and then we continued walking 723 stairs up and down the cavern to go 300 feet lower than that.  The temperature was 49 degrees - again warmer than the outside weather, which made it warm for us.  We had a tour group of 30 people.

Jewel Cave, established as a National Monument in 1908, is the 3rd longest cave in the country.  So, far, they have discovered 193.9 miles of cave and they said that's probably only about 5% of what is out there.  Since Jewel Cave and Wind Cave are only 10 miles as the crow flies, I was curious to know if they would intersect at some point and there was no answer yet.  Interestingly, the caves have totally different kinds of things going on inside.  While Wind Cave is noted for their Boxwork, Jewel Cave is noted for different things - Draperies (like bacon), Scintillites, Gypsum, Rimstone Dams, Dogtooth Spar and Frostwork.  Also, while Wind Cave was very dry, Jewel Cave was quite wet.  They contribute that to when they put the elevator shafts in it broke some of the cave causing water to seep into the cave, which actually turned out to be a good thing.  Here's a little video of the Drip Hole.

For anyone interesting to going to Jewel Cave, the tour schedule should be checked out before you come.  Generally, during the summer months, tours are sold out by noon but I believe you can book tours prior to your coming.

We ended the day with a beautiful sunset.