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    Jewel Cave National Monument

    4.2 (65 reviews)
    Open 8:30 am - 4:30 pm

    Jewel Cave National Monument Photos

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    Jewel Cave Discovery Tour
    Becki H.

    We unfortunately missed out on the "scenic tour" which was sold out months in advance, but were able to get on the "discovery tour". We paid online ahead of time and headed over to the monument where we were whisked through the check-in process after ensuring that we were wearing close-toed shoes and didn't have any bags on our persons. It was a toasty day out, so we were looking forward to the cooler temperatures down in the cave. We perused the gift shop while we waited for our tour to begin and then were gathered into a hallway where Tanya greeted us, gave us a little more information about what we were about to see and we headed down the 31 second elevator ride to 240 feet below ground. Tanya took us into the cave pointed out some of her favorite rock formations and the carvings that the acids had eaten out of the cave, as well as gave us some info on the bats that typically live closer to the entrances. It was a speedy 25 minute "tour" where we basically just stood in one cavernous (ha!) room and had time to look around and ask questions. After, we walked across the decontamination area of hydrogen peroxide to help keep the White-Nose syndrome that's spreading around the bat population at bay. Tanya recommended we hike on over to the natural entrance of the cave where we could see the space where the miners who discovered it blasted through to the entrance. There was a chilly breeze coming out of the entrance (which is closed up to prevent people from entering) which we basked in until it was time to head back to our car and our lovely air conditioning. Overall, a very short tour, but still interesting! I'd love to go back and take the longer scenic tour, but definitely will need to book far in advance.

    Tom G.

    We thoroughly enjoyed the cave tour and all the information associated with the cave. We took the Scenic Tour that lasted about 105 minutes.

    Formations in Jewel Cave
    May N.

    A great cave for first-timers or people who have visited many caves. The beauty of this cave rivals Carlsbad or Mammoth, even though Jewel Cave is much less well known. We did the Scenic Tour and our guide, Amy, was great. She explained about the history of the cave's formation and the early explorers. The cave is still being explored and new passages are constantly being discovered. As of our visit approximately 215 miles of passages are known and Amy stated that only about 5% of the cave has been discovered. The cave is an easy 15-minute drive west of the town of Custer. The biggest variety of tours are only offered in the high-high season (June through Labor Day). We went in mid-September and it was still crowded. The limited number of tours often sell out by early afternoon, so it's best to make reservations beforehand.

    Liz M.

    Loved the historic lantern cave tour along w/ our ranger guide. She was extremely knowledgeable and was a pleasure having her. You gotta get here early for tickets as they are limited capacity and have several time frames. It starts getting busy around 10am. The place opens up at 8am so i HIGHLY suggest you do yourself a favor and get there as early as possible. Not only will you get to decide what time you want to do your cave excursions but you will also beat the crowds. Caves inside are beautiful, some with some stunning jewel formations. The tour does have a lot of stairs ascending and descending so take your time. A great stop at this national monument if you're near the area.

    A part of the Scenic Route tour (lasts about 1.5 hrs and includes many cave formations)
    Sarah L.

    Jewel Cave is an incredible National Monument, and the 3rd longest cave in the world, with newly discovered miles being added each year. I've done the Discovery Tour, Historic Lantern Tour, & Scenic Tour. This is a beautiful cave. Best tip? Reserve your tours on recreation.gov 2+ days in advance. Day of tickets are available at 8 a.m. on site, but no guarantees as time goes on. (The elevators ARE working- the old reviews are no longer accurate.) Tours: --The discovery tour is best if you don't have much time, or people or children in your group don't have the abilities to do longer tours with stairs. Your guide will bring you into a large room of the cave and you'll learn from that space. --The Historic Lantern is more challenging, with some ducking and tighter spaces, but middle-ages kids on the tour did well, and it is enjoyable using the lanterns and getting more of the history by entering the historic side. --The scenic tour is excellent for seeing many cave formations and rooms of the cave. You'll see soda straws, "cave bacon," calcite formations, and learn about history & geology of the site. You will start in the same room as the discovery tour, so no need to do this one plus discovery. This one has many stairs, but they are modern with rails, and spaced well apart with breaks. While you're at the site you can do a short 0.25 mi loop to enjoy the wildlife on top of the cave, or a Canyons trail (~3.8 mi) for more of a challenge. Make sure to ask for a PeeWee Ranger or Junior Ranger booklet! There's also a Cave Scientist badge. The Rangers are great here and seeing them swear in new kid rangers is so sweet.

    Ceiling
    Sam A.

    Not that great. Elevator currenty under renovation so must make a two mile med hard trip to enter and return. Inside main room nothing great.

    Lisa N.

    My family and I were super excited to visit this guided cave tour. This was an hour drive from where we were staying so I called them in the morning and asked if we had to make reservations. She said it was first come first serve, but I should be fine if I got there before noon. Well , I got there at noon and they informed us they had only a few spots open but our group of 3 had to be separated into 3 separate tours which were hours apart. Bummer and what a waste. We took some time to explore the visitor center and watched a video in the theatre they had about Jewel Cave. Super informative, but disappointed that we weren't able to experience it first hand.

    Lisa M.

    6-19-19 We came here a couple years ago. We had one day in the area. They were sold out of cave tickets for the day. So Wednesday we got here 15 minutes before they opened just to be sure. We got early tickets and had a great tour. Our guide was Ron. Funny guy and very knowledgeable about the cave. We started by taking an elevator over 200 feet below. There was lots of stairs to go up and down. Not strenuous. We have been through about 7 cave tours. Sometimes they start to all look alike. Jewel cave was definitely unique. We did see several jewel formations. Took elevator back up. It was a nice hour and a half tour. Make sure to bring a jacket. 49 degrees in cave. I wouldn't tour it again but would recommend it! Great for families or school field trips. *Pics aren't that great. Lighting isn't great in caves.

    Ryan C.

    Jewel Cave is far more remote and less traveled than Wind Cave. To that end the tours are a little smaller. The rangers are awesome and informative. The big rooms were impressive and they have cave bacon, something that we did not see in Wind Cave. However the metal walkway and steps gave it a modern and industrial feel. Sure it is safe, but it feels like you lost touch with the "feel" of the cave. What did I learn today? If I had to go to one cave in this area it would be the Historic Candlelight tour at Wind Cave.

    Calcium carbonate crystals
    Elisabeth P.

    This was probably one of my favorite things I did while on my trip to South Dakota. Firstly let me start by saying that 12.00 for an hour and a half scenic tour is a great price. The tour was very informative and I was impressed with how many rooms we were able to see. The total walking distance was only a half mile and was a pretty easy walk for everyone on the tour. Jewel Cave is the third longest cave in the world and has a mixture of both wet and dry formations, stalagtites and mites, amazing calcium carbonate crystals, and some of the largest cave rooms I've been into in my travels. The first room you go in feels literally like walking into a cathedral with beautiful high ceilings. The walkways are all really well lighted and built. They have several different tour types to choose from and I think the lamplight tour where they take you to the original cave opening at night would be another fun one. Overall I think if you're in the area to see Mt. Rushmore and other such monuments, Jewel Cave is a must! Just be sure to get there early to get your tickets! They don't take reservations and frequently sell all their tickets for the day (on a weekend) a few hours after opening. So even if you want to take an afternoon tour, be sure to stop in early in the morning before going about your other activities.

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    Ask the Community - Jewel Cave National Monument

    Review Highlights - Jewel Cave National Monument

    I took the scenic tour, which had areas that were much larger than the natural cave tour at wind cave.

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    Custer State Park

    Custer State Park

    4.7(281 reviews)
    21.8 mi

    I had an amazing opportunity on our previous trip to take the whole family to see this awesome park…read morelocated just a few miles away from Mount Rushmore. one of the things that really excited my family and I was the wildlife road that you could take got to see some amazing animals freely grazing right on the sides of roads. It was a great experience I was told that if you want to see even more come earlier and you will thoroughly enjoy how much our life is out and about we went about 1 o'clock and still having to enjoy the time seeing lots of wildlife This wildlife road definitely can take you about two hours to drive on so be prepared for that if you take the wildlife road After that, we continued on to see the eye of the needle and many other amazing places they had inside the park. After driving around, we stopped by the lake. They have some beautiful deck seating for you if you decide to either go in get some food and eat on the deck area outside or take it to go either way it is a great atmosphere inside the gift shop plenty of smiling faces and Nice People working in this area. Oh, I definitely think that it was a world park and every person we encountered whether it was a park range or a worker they were very nice and courteous easy to talk to and we definitely just enjoyed our time there

    We started off our day at Custer State Park. We began by going into the visitor center, which is an…read moreabsolute MUST DO. Why? Because when you walk in there is a large scale model of the park and they mark it to show the last reported sighting of bison. The volunteers then showed us how to find that area, and they also showed us another visitor center along the way where they recommended we stop to get further updated information. The bison were located at the southern end of the park, so the beginning of our drive was just through beautiful landscape, without much wildlife at that point. We stopped as instructed at the next visitor center, and got an updated status of the bison, as well as directions on how to find them, as you needed to go off on one of the side roads. We headed off, and then as we rounded the bend on the road there they were! Hundreds of bison as far as you could see. It was absolutely amazing. You can easily pull to the side of the road and stop, and you can roll down your windows and just observe - it was incredible. Several times we were stopped along the way as they crossed the road in front of us. It was absolutely one of the highlights of our trip to South Dakota. After we finished driving through the herd, we continued our journey and ended up at the Blue Bell Lodge for lunch, which we highly recommend. From there, we drove the Needles Highway, a big portion of which in our case was done in the rain. But despite the rain, there was still lots to see, even though a lot of it for us was from inside the car, where we periodically rolled down the windows to take pictures. I would say our day at Custer State Park was absolutely the best experience we had during the entire stay in South Dakota, so I would highly, highly recommend it!

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    Custer State Park
    Custer State Park - Bison Center

    Bison Center

    Custer State Park - Sylvan Lake Kayaking

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    Sylvan Lake Kayaking

    Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway - Mountain goats

    Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

    4.7(26 reviews)
    52.5 mi

    This is such a pretty drive and worth checking out, even if you're not planning on doing any hikes…read more The canyon walls look so steep and during the sunset they get pink-tinged. I saw a bunch of mountain goats right next to the highway, and it was my first time seeing them since they're supposed to be shy! Be sure to drive slow so you can catch the wildlife and also not hit any of them. Some turkeys were there and they did not have any street smarts, if you know what I mean. Bridal Veil Falls is right off the highway, and very accessible. I also checked out Devil's Bathtub, although I didn't get in since it was freezing cold! Be aware that there are about 7 or so river crossings (you basically follow the stream up) so either be good at balancing on the rocks or be prepared to get wet.

    I'll always rate it 5 stars. I've been coming here my whole life. On this trip, One day we spent…read moreexploring the rocks under bridal veil falls and hiked the nature hike to roughlock falls and back. The next day we did Devils bathtub hike (about 1.6 miles round trip). Bring water shoes and be prepared to navigate a bit as the trail crosses the steam many times. We saw the lovely transplanted mountain goats that have been in the canyon for years now. Always a pleasure to see them. We were fortunate enough to come in June and got some cool weather to enjoy it all. Note: devils bathtub is not hot springs. lol. The canyon is super clean and facilities are all in great shape EXCEPT the vault toilets at Roughlock. They were the worst smelling things I have ever experienced. Please figure out something different. I wish I would have peed in a bush instead of going in there. Yuck!

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    Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway
    Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway
    Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway

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    Jewel Cave National Monument - hiking - Updated May 2026

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