Jewel Cave, South Dakota

20 or so years ago when we last were at Mount Rushmore we visited Jewel Cave with the kids, and Barry and Susie Miller. Patty had done the spelunking tour but not the regular cave tour that the rest of us had done. This time we decided to do the longer Scenic Tour.

In this picture you can see the extensive map system that is the Jewel Cave system. It is actually larger then this because it is still being discovered.

Jewel Cave Maps

The Scenic Tour is the most popular tour of Jewel Cave.

Scenic Tour

The Scenic Tour route provides an opportunity to visit various cave chambers and passages decorated with calcite crystals and other speleothems. This tour is considered a modern day walking tour along a paved trail with electric lighting. The tour enters and leaves the cave by elevator in the Visitor Center. The Scenic Tour is moderately strenuous and lasts 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Elevators to Cave

The tour route involves walking up and down 723 stair steps along a 1/2 mile loop, (equivalent to 40 flights of stairs). During the Scenic Tour, you see two types of calcite crystals known as nailhead spar and dogtooth spar, which are the "jewels" of Jewel Cave. In addition, you can view boxwork, cave popcorn, flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites, draperies, and a long ribbon drapery called the cave bacon.

Cave Bacon

Here you can see the big room with some of the stairways that need to be tranversed.

Big Room

Part of the Scenic Tour.

Jewel Cave

Tour continues. Although the cave stays at 49 degrees year round with the up and down stairs (723 stairs) it was still a workout!

Green tints....

Here is a sample of cave popcorn.

Jewel Popcorn

Here are some samples of Cave Drapery.

Cave Drapery

Jewel cave is properly named as it truly is a jewel!

After we finished our tour we decided to head to Mount Rushmore Monument. The story of Mount Rushmore is really interesting.

South Dakota historian Doane Robinson is credited with conceiving the idea of carving the likenesses of famous people into the Black Hills region of South Dakota in order to promote tourism in the region. Robinson's initial idea was to sculpt the Needles; however, Gutzon Borglum rejected the Needles site because of the poor quality of the granite and strong opposition from Native American groups. 

The Needles

They settled on the Mount Rushmore location, which also has the advantage of facing southeast for maximum sun exposure. Robinson wanted it to feature western heroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud, and Buffalo Bill Cody, but Borglum decided the sculpture should have a more national focus and chose the four presidents whose likenesses would be carved into the mountain. After securing federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of "Mount Rushmore's great political patron", U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck, construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum's death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over construction. Although the initial concept called for each president to be depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941.

Unfortunately on this day low clouds started coming in on the monument.

Mount Rushmore

Within just a few minutes you could barely see the presidents.

The Presidents are Missing!

Two minutes later they were totally gone! LOL.

We decided it would be better to come back another day. Fortunately the monument is free but it does cost to park. The parking fee is good for the rest of the year so it will not cost us to come back. We will come back and view the evening lighting ceremony!

That's it for today...

Keep praying for Avery Huffman!  God can deliver her from this!

God Bless you,
Brian and Patty