Best cave?

We will be in the Mt. Rushmore area late June for a couple of days. We would like to go through a cave while there but will only have time for one. Which do you think is the best one? Price? How far from Keystone area? All info apperciated. Thanks!

Best cave?

The best of the area are the ones operated by NPS: Wind %26amp; Jewel Cave. If I had to choose, I%26#39;d pick Jewel for the beauty of its formations and openness (for a cave). Jewel has the best variety, including stalactites, stalagmites, cave popcorn, cave bacon, crystals, etc. The rangers do an excellent job. If you decide on Jewel and are on limited time,I%26#39;d recommend advance reservations. We went on a rainy day and had to wait close to 2 hours for a tour. Jewel is the 2nd longest cave in the world.

Wind Cave is also terrific and is known for a formation called boxwork, which resembles spider webs. It%26#39;s a bit less open and less diverse formations. Those with claustrophobia might be somewhat bothered. We had no problems. Tours also seemed to be more frequent at Wind. We didn%26#39;t need advance reservations here.

Tours at each last about 1.5 hours and cost $8-$9 per person. They are very reasonable for what you get.

You really can%26#39;t go wrong with either cave. If you visit nps.gov, you can view images that will give you an idea of what you will see. You can probably decide more from there. Have a great time!

Best cave?

Also, both caves are around 35-40 minutes from the Keystone area. The Black Hills is such an easy region to tour because of the close proximity of the attractions.

I took my son age 9 to both caves, we enjoyed Jewel Cave much better. But both were very interesting. We were only in the Black Hills area for 2 full days and did both caves, visited Mt Rushmore twice (day and night), drove the Wildlife Loop in Custer State Park, did a few hikes and even had time to go out to dinner!

Have a great trip.

Is the Jewel cave the one that has the different tour groups? If it is, Thats the one I%26#39;ve been reading about and leaning more towards. Which tour did you do? We just want to do the simplest. Are there a lot of stairs to climb in either of these caves? (Jewel %26amp; Wind)

At Jewel Cave we did the Scenic Tour and yes, there were stairs. www.nps.gov/jeca/planyourvisit/scenictour.htm

At Wind Cave we did the Natural Entrance Tour, with fewer stairs! nps.gov/wica/…tour-natural-entrance.htm

Hi Tennessee,

We, too, did the Scenic Tour at Jewel. They also have a Discovery Talk. Here%26#39;s the link below:

nps.gov/jeca/planyourvisit/discoverytalk.htm

It%26#39;s only 20 minutes and involves only 15 steps. It%26#39;s handicapped accessible.

We absolutely loved the Scenic Tour. I tend to avoid the lantern tours because I like to have a good view of the formations, and lantern light just isn%26#39;t as good as electric, imo. It%26#39;s true that there are a lot of steps (over 700), but they aren%26#39;t steep and are mostly steel (very substantial). As long as you don%26#39;t have any physical limitations, (i.e. bad knees, etc). I%26#39;d really consider doing the tour. I remember wanting a longer tour when we were all done.

At Wind Cave, we did the Fairgrounds Tour. Here%26#39;s a link for this one:

nps.gov/jeca/planyourvisit/discoverytalk.htm

We really enjoyed this one as well. It has fewer steps than Jewel, but I don%26#39;t recall either tour being strenuous. Once again, the steps are pretty substantial.

Hope this helps. Please let us know if you have more questions.