A Nearly Failed Cave Tour
How Crocs and a thunderstorm nearly derail our chance to visit Jewel Cave
It’s summer, which means travel for my family. It also means that between commentary on life, social issues, and our years living in Texas, I will deliver two to three posts a month about our family’s summer travels until the end of the year.
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Our family loves a good cave tour.
It probably started after Jeff and I got married. During the years we first lived in Indianapolis, we traveled down to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky for two separate spring breaks. Then, after we got back into camping with our kids, we took them to Mammoth Cave for a spring break trip. The summer we moved back to Indianapolis, we stopped at Mammoth Cave again for a tour with the kids, Jeff’s parents, and his older sister. And it isn’t just Mammoth. Visiting Carlsbad Caverns was one of many highlights of our trip to Arches several years ago.
Order my book to find out more about that trip and many more camping experiences over the years.
So visiting Jewel Cave while we were in the Black Hills went onto our “must-do” list, especially since the cave tours would be shut down at Wind Cave due to elevator work.
A few weeks before our departure, Jeff asked if I had checked the cave tours. Since most national park tours are now booked online, people can reserve well in advance. I checked the website and discovered we had limited options during the days we would be in the Black Hills, especially if we wanted to do the historic lantern tour. I made the reservation and planned the rest of our Black Hills visit around our scheduled tour.
If only it had been that easy.
First, we had to get our two teenagers up early to make it to the cave in time for a 9:45 a.m. tour. Then, I failed to check whether they both had appropriate footgear. When we arrived to check in for the tour, we looked at our son’s feet. The ranger looked at our son’s feet. And we were told he needed closed-toe shoes, not the Crocs he was wearing at the time. We didn’t have time to return to our campsite, change shoes, and still make the tour. Thankfully, they had afternoon tickets available, so we accepted the reality that we had just made an additional financial donation to the National Parks Service, reserved our afternoon tickets, and left to explore Mount Rushmore.
We watched the storm clouds gather as we returned to Jewel Cave, thunder faintly rolling in the distance. We weren’t nervous. After all, we were heading underground. We wouldn’t know if a tornado hit above ground while we were in the cave, so we weren’t worried about a potential thunderstorm messing with our tour.
Except, there is a metal gate at the entrance to the cave. As I walked up to the ranger cabin, the ranger in charge of the tour informed me we would have to wait out the storm before we could take the tour. Apparently, the metal gate attracts lightning. The group already in the cave would have to wait out the storm to come out and we would have to wait it out to go in. And with a tour group scheduled to go after us, there was no guarantee that our tour wouldn’t get canceled.
Our 13-year-old was already chagrined for being the reason we couldn’t take the first tour. Now he was feeling tremendous guilt as we continued to watch the storm build around us, occasional flashes of lightning accompanied by almost constant rolls of thunder. We welcomed the other two members of our tour group and we all sat under the ranger cabin porch. Eventually, she invited us inside and gave us a tour of the cabin, telling us about the first couple to occupy the cabin and serve as guides to early visitors in the park. Our fellow tour mates found a pile of laminated pictures in a drawer, and we continued to pass the time as we looked through old pictures revealing more of the history of the cave and cabin.
It thundered, it rained some, and then we saw pellet-sized hail bounce on the ground around the cabin. Finally, we saw a break in the clouds. The previous group returned from the cave and our ranger got the all-clear to give us an abbreviated tour of the cave. We were going to have to accept whatever we got.
We walked down the canyon trail to the entrance and entered the cave, feeling a rush of cold air. Our ranger informed us this meant the cave was sensing a low-pressure system. The region was not done with storms for the day.
Once all seven of us were in the cave entrance, we turned on our lanterns and prepared to rush through the tour. Our ranger had already given us far more history than most tour participants get, as we learned more about the cabin and early cave exploring while waiting for the storm to pass. The six tourists agreed we wanted to see as much of the cave as we could, so our guide could speed through the rest of the stories.
We descended 500 stairs, which were more ladder than staircase. I went down most of the stairs backward, following the lead of our tour guide. We all carried our LED lanterns to light our way nearly straight into the depths of the cave. We ducked as our guide led us from one room to the next. While she said the tour would be abbreviated, we convinced her to shorten the script instead of the tour, and she eventually led us to the last room. In the Heavenly Room, the final stop of the tour, we took a few minutes to walk around and explore before we prepared to climb out of the cave.
As we exited the cave, we walked across a mat with a chemical solution to prevent the spread of disease that is killing bats around the country. This was the reason we had to have closed-toe shoes. But having done enough cave tours, we also understood why the precaution was necessary. Besides, I couldn’t imagine taking the stairs down into the cave wearing anything but sturdy tennis shoes or hiking boots. While I wasn’t thrilled about paying for a second tour and the delay from the storm, it was worth the wait. We were so glad that we both waited it out and that our tour guide figured out how to give us the tour before the next tour group had to sneak in before the next storm came through.
And of course, the skies were sunny and blue when we exited, taunting us after we had to wait so long for the storm to pass hours before.
Was it my favorite tour ever? No. But I still enjoyed it and was thankful that our growing kids are still willing to explore with us.
And next time we do a cave tour as a family, I’m checking their feet before we leave the camper.
Do you want to know more about how I plan our vacations? Check out this blog post and get a copy of my planning spreadsheet below:
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