Day Fourty One
Another beautiful blue sky in South Dakota today. It is going to be another hot one, so the best thing to do is to go caving. The Black Hills is riddled with over 200 separate cave systems. We went to the National Monument Site of Jewel Cave. Jewel Cave is the third largest cave system in the world, with 132.9 miles in length mapped. They are still discovering and mapping more passages. They believe that they have only discovered maybe 10 percent of the total volume of the cave.
They have many types of tours. The first one is a spelunking tour; a max of 5 people can go, you must be over 16 and be able to fit through a 7.5 inch by 24 inch crawl space. This was not our tour. The next tour is the lantern tour. This tour takes you back in time to the 1940's when the park service first started giving tours of the cave. You enter at the historic entrance which is the only known natural entrance to the surface. You travel through the cave with parrafin oil lanterns. There are no electric lights and only wooden ladders. We decided on this tour. It starts at the orginal Ranger cabin that was also the home of the visitor centre. It is a three room log cabin. The girls did very well but it definitely was a test for them at first. We travelled or crouched through many twisting tunnels. We climbed up and down many very steep ladders or stairs. The walls of jewel cave are covered in Nailhead Spar: a crystal calcium carbonite. Very pretty. Brenna thought the cave was "interesting, pretty but the ladders were scary" Kaitlin thought " It had interesting formations and that our tour guide, Ranger Jack was scary". Stewart thought "it was very interestting and the wooden staircases were a bit intimidating" Margot had the same opinion and "I liked to concentrate on each step and not really look up or down." We came out of the cave very pleased with our accomplishments and decided to go back to the visitor centre and take another tour.
The scenic tour takes you down an elevator 23 stories into the lower levels of the cave. At this level the "room" or caverns are huge. They have it all lit, and have metal staircases and walkways. This tour let you see the crystal formations, soda straws, flow stones and many other cave formations. It was a cake walk compared to the first tour.
After spending 4 hours underground we were ready for dinner. We went to Custer and had dinner and did one last grocery shop. It was 8.30 and so that we didn't have to back track we headed to Mt. Rushmore. It is open 24 hours a day so we knew that it should be lit. We arrived at 9.00 pm and the lights were not on! This is a National Park with no admission but you have to pay $8.00 for parking in their four story parking garage. The attendant told us the lighting ceremony started at 9.00 but the lights were not turned on until 9.30. We arrived just in time. This place has a large ampitheatre and they put on a patriotic show nightly. We got a few pictures and then made a mad dash to beat all the traffic of everyone leaving. We arrived at camp at 10.40 completely exhausted.
Inside Jewel Cave
Bacon inside Jewel Cave
Mount Rushmore at night
They have many types of tours. The first one is a spelunking tour; a max of 5 people can go, you must be over 16 and be able to fit through a 7.5 inch by 24 inch crawl space. This was not our tour. The next tour is the lantern tour. This tour takes you back in time to the 1940's when the park service first started giving tours of the cave. You enter at the historic entrance which is the only known natural entrance to the surface. You travel through the cave with parrafin oil lanterns. There are no electric lights and only wooden ladders. We decided on this tour. It starts at the orginal Ranger cabin that was also the home of the visitor centre. It is a three room log cabin. The girls did very well but it definitely was a test for them at first. We travelled or crouched through many twisting tunnels. We climbed up and down many very steep ladders or stairs. The walls of jewel cave are covered in Nailhead Spar: a crystal calcium carbonite. Very pretty. Brenna thought the cave was "interesting, pretty but the ladders were scary" Kaitlin thought " It had interesting formations and that our tour guide, Ranger Jack was scary". Stewart thought "it was very interestting and the wooden staircases were a bit intimidating" Margot had the same opinion and "I liked to concentrate on each step and not really look up or down." We came out of the cave very pleased with our accomplishments and decided to go back to the visitor centre and take another tour.
The scenic tour takes you down an elevator 23 stories into the lower levels of the cave. At this level the "room" or caverns are huge. They have it all lit, and have metal staircases and walkways. This tour let you see the crystal formations, soda straws, flow stones and many other cave formations. It was a cake walk compared to the first tour.
After spending 4 hours underground we were ready for dinner. We went to Custer and had dinner and did one last grocery shop. It was 8.30 and so that we didn't have to back track we headed to Mt. Rushmore. It is open 24 hours a day so we knew that it should be lit. We arrived at 9.00 pm and the lights were not on! This is a National Park with no admission but you have to pay $8.00 for parking in their four story parking garage. The attendant told us the lighting ceremony started at 9.00 but the lights were not turned on until 9.30. We arrived just in time. This place has a large ampitheatre and they put on a patriotic show nightly. We got a few pictures and then made a mad dash to beat all the traffic of everyone leaving. We arrived at camp at 10.40 completely exhausted.
Inside Jewel Cave
Bacon inside Jewel Cave
Mount Rushmore at night
posted by Winter Family Web Logs at 3:57 PM
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