“Home to sparkling calcite crystals”
Jewel Cave is a unique world of sparkling calcite crystals and other spectacular cave formations. The cave is currently the second longest in the world, at 155.12 miles. Immerse yourself within the second longest cave in the world. With over 160 miles of mapped and surveyed passages, this underground wilderness appeals to human curiosity. Its splendor is revealed through fragile formations and glimpses of brilliant color. Its maze of passages lure explorers, and its scientific wealth remains a mystery. This resource is truly a jewel in the National Park Service. Jewel Cave is world renowned for its crystal-lined passages and rare cave formations such as hydromagnesite balloons and conulites.
Simply unexceptable caving experience. Can't make reservations in advanced. Unwelcoming staff. 30+ people per tour. Perhaps the walls are lined with "jewels" perhaps not, can't tell due to improper lighting. Must use hand rails on over 700 stairs but the hand rails are covered in a massive amount of truly disgusting bat drippings and NO SOAP in the restrooms. Do yourself a solid and mark this an experience worth missing.
No one under 5 allowed? That's a fairly crappy thing to read for a family.
Children under 5 are Free.
https://www.nps.gov/jeca/planyourvisit/fees.htm
Very educational and fun stop! As others have said, you do need to get tickets early. We arrived at 10 and the first available "scenic" tour (1 hour 20 minutes) was at 12:40. We just went down the road to the historic site, had a picnic lunch, a quick short hike and had a very informative talk from the volunteer park ranger so it all worked out well. Just a word of caution if you have kids: the junior ranger program was pretty involved. At other parks it didn't take the kids very long to complete it but this one took quite a long while. It was a bit frustrating for all of us since we were used to them being completed during the tour/drive/hike and they weren't allowed to bring them in the cave so had to be done before and after. It probably took an extra 90 minutes to complete the entire thing (including a talk from a park ranger). Having said that, it was very educational and the place is cool and well run.
Do get there before they officially open. Don't miss this one. Wide open caves won't make anyone feel claustrophobic. Learned a lot!
We were very disappointed to miss this cave. Didn't think the tours for the afternoon would sell out in the morning
Neat cave and beautiful grounds to walk around. Definitely make reservations there's no guarantees if you walk up. Park Rangers were great. There are lots of stairs but we took two young kids (3 and 5) and they did ok.
Jewel Cave was great. Large rooms. Get there early for tickets, they sell out fast.
Really nice cave tour. Very knowledgeable ranger. The kids enjoyed it immensely!
Very cool! So many different things to see. The tour was great.
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Jewel Cave National Monument
Hours
- Sun - Sat: 8:30 am - 4:30 pm
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Wheelchair Accessible
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