Caves of the Black Hills

Hiking at Wind Cave National Park | Touring Jewel Cave National Monument | Hiking in Hell’s Canyon | July 2025

After our quiet evening on Bear Mountain, we made our way down along forest roads towards the town of Custer. We picked up the highway just South of the Crazy Horse monument, but didn’t bother to stop heading instead further South to Wind Cave National Park. We hadn’t gotten up that early, so we didn’t really expect much out of our visit to the cave. And when we arrived at the visitor center we were met with an almost completely full parking lot.

We found a parking spot way at the end and then stopped inside. As expected, all the cave tours were already sold out. We toured the visitor center and grabbed our NPS stamps, then headed toward the Northern end of the park for a short hike. The crowds were significantly less here and we easily found a parking spot at the Rankin Ridge trail.

The trail was short and easy enough and lead up to a firetower, which was closed to the public. But fortunately the summit was mostly clear and we had unlimited views out to the East and North. We’re pretty sure we could trace out the path of the Centennial Trail a couple miles away as it crossed through the National park and into Custer State Park.

It was only early afternoon at this point, but we didn’t really have much else planned for the day. We made our way to a potential boondocking spot just outside of the park with the idea of trying to be the first ones in line to tour Wind Cave the following morning. But after relaxing and eating lunch we decided that 1. We didn’t like this spot that much. And 2. we didn’t really feel the need to tour Wind Cave. Instead we drove back out to the town of Custer where we found a much larger boondocking area South of the airport.

Since we still had hours of daylight left we decided to just wander around the forest on the old fire roads and 4×4 trails. We did this on and off until it finally cooled down and we could settle in for the night.

The next day, while we decided to skip out on Wind Cave, we did decide to give Jewell Cave National Monument a go and left for the visitor center first thing in the morning. We weren’t the first in line by a long shot, and clearly lots of other people had the same idea (it was coming on July 4th weekend after all), but we still managed to get a tour slot before noon. To kill time until the tour started, we ate breakfast and then walked the trail from the Visitor Center to the old cave entrance. It was uncomfortably warm, and not the most scenic of trails, but it kept us busy until our tour.

We took the Scenic Tour of the cave which starts with an elevator ride into the heart of the cave complex. Jewell Cave was discovered in 1900 when two prospectors found the natural entrance that we had walked to. When they entered the cave they thought they had discovered an enormous quartz vein with the hope that the quartz would yield gold. But, after they filed a mining claim they discovered that all the crystalline growths they had seen were actually calcite crystals (called spar). After failing to make a tourist attraction of the cave, the cave eventually became protected by Theodore Roosevelt in 1908.

The cave was assumed to be small from its discovery until the mid-1950’s, and only the immediate region from the natural entrance was explored (about 2 miles of passages). But in 1959 a couple (Jan and Herb Conn) began exploring the cave, and by 1979 they had mapped 64 miles of passages, many of which were covered with the crystalline spar. They also pioneered a means of estimating the size of the cave and calculated the total distance of the cave to be as high as 7300 miles making it the 5th longest cave in the world.

This history was honestly the coolest part to me. The speleological science, logistics and cartographical methods of mapping a cave – something that is still being done annually by the park – were really fascinating and the exhibits and discussions were really well put together. They even had several interviews with Jan Conn and later pioneers.

The cave itself was cool (both physically and interesting), but there was never anything that we hadn’t seen at other caves like Kartchner Caverns or Colossal Cave in Arizona: flow stone, stalagmites & stalactites, pillars, straws, bacon, etc. The only thing that we felt set it apart was the almost perpetual existence of the calcite spar on almost every surface – but when it’s everywhere it really lost its novelty.

Between the ‘we’ve seen this before’ mentality, our general dour moods, and some particularly obnoxious children, the tour was something we’re glad we did, but it’s not something we would be clambering to do again. But a cave mapping expedition…too bad we aren’t locals.

When we finished with the tour we continued further west and stopped just outside the park at Hell Canyon. It was warmer than our hike earlier that morning, but finding a boondocking spot and parking for the rest of the day would be just as hot if not hotter than going for another walk, and truthfully this ended up being almost a highlight of Jewell Cave NM.

We walked the bottom of the canyon which offered more shade and almost immediately we spotted a herd of bighorn up on the canyon walls. We followed the meandering canyon as far as we felt, admiring the tall walls and finding some cool looking rocks, gooseberries, and saskatoon to snack on. On our return journey we saw the bighorn herd again, but this time they were on the trail and much too close for comfort. It seems that we have a penchant for getting unintentionally close to these sheep: see our experiences in Supai and the Rio Grande.

Back at the car we decided it was time to find a place to settle down, hopefully for the rest of the holiday weekend.