Jewel Cave National Monument

After a morning at Wind Cave National Park, we headed to Jewel Cave National Monument, only a short drive away.

I’m not sure why Wind Cave gets National Park designation while Jewel Cave only gets to be a National Monument since Jewel Cave is currently the larger of the two. Jewel Cave reportedly has over 220 miles of explored cave to Wind Cave’s 162 miles, though in both parks, we were told that experts believe the caves to be up to 10 times larger than currently mapped.

Nonetheless, we decided not to take a cave tour at Jewel Cave, feeling one tour was enough for the day. We did stop by the visitor center, check out the exhibits there, and watch the short film about the cave. In retrospect, I would have liked to take a tour if just for comparison with Wind Cave. Perhaps I will return one day and do so.

Despite being so close, Jewel Cave is very different from Wind Cave. It is a wet cave, more like most other caves such as Mammoth Cave (Wind Cave is considered a dry cave due to very little water seeping into it). Many who have studied the caves believe that the two link up somewhere, though such a link has yet to be found. Others, however, say that the differences between the caves may show that they never do link. I guess we won’t know until a link is found.

Calcite crystals found throughout the cave gave it its name.  The white formations can resemble large pearls. However, the cave has many other formations, including frostworks, which, as their name implies, look like frost on the rocks; cave popcorn, which again is named because of how it looks; and stalactites and stalagmites. There are even some boxwork formations, more common in Wind Cave.

Our visit to Jewel Cave was rather short, as outside of the cave tours, there isn’t much else to do.  The park website offers a few trails on the surface, but with temperatures heading close to the 90s, we opted to pass on any hikes.

Steve