Jewel Cave Tour

On the second day of our trip, we have three stops. The first of which was a cave tour. After having a relaxing morning at the cabin, we cleaned up, locked up, and headed out for the cave tour we had booked in advance. When we mapped it from home, it was about 45 minutes from the cabin to Wind Cave National Park, so we left about an hour before the scheduled tour. We entered our destination into the GPS and were on our way just to discover that we actually had an hour and a half drive ahead of us. As I sped down dirt mountain road at speedy 30 miles per hour, we had to resign to the fact that we were going to miss the tour. Disappointed, we decided to just keep driving to see what else we could do. Then, we saw signs directing us to Jewel Cave National Monument. Luckily, we were able to book a lantern tour about an hour later.

The tour we ended up going on because of a miscalculation in time ended up being amazing. We met at the historical cabin that had originally been used as quarters for the forest service member giving tours as well as the visitor's center. Then, we hiked a bit to the other side of the mountain and into the cave. We walked as a group from "room" to "room" with a guide who told us the history and geology of the cave while half of the people in the group held LED light lanterns. The stairs were steep and narrow. Some of the areas required us to duck. It was a bit chilly. Those things were all not important. It was an awesome cave and the guide was engaging. I would highly recommend this tour to anyone.