If you are looking for a challenging wild cave tour that doesn't require you to join a caving club or own your own gear, this is the one. Jewel Cave's tour is quite tough and will challenge you in all kinds of interesting ways! I have taken this tour twice. Here's what it's like!
Before the tour even starts, everyone planning to go on the tour must pass through this block out on the patio:
Note the ranger standing on top of the block to make sure you don't just squeeze it open. If you don't get through, you don't take the tour. The tightest spot on the tour is about as tight as the squeeze through this block (though shorter) so they want to make sure you will fit. One of the times I did this tour, one of the tour members was rather burly and couldn't make it through. For tight spaces, of course you want to be thin, but you also don't want to have a big ribcage. A little fat can squoosh out of the way, but bones aren't going anywhere.
Jewel Cave’s surfaces are mostly coated with slippery, sticky black mud, meaning your feet, gloves, knees, whole front, and even elbows get coated and ruined with dark, permanent stains. The landscape in the Wild Cave tour area is stark, with very few formations, and dark, with a lot of black deposits on the walls and floor, which then tend to swallow up light. Most of the wall and ceiling surfaces are covered with rock of an unusual, cantaloupe-skin texture. We climbed up to a ledge with the help of a looped rope, and slid across the gap on our rears to head towards Hurricane Corner. We climbed a tiny ladder, then chimneyed up a crack into a tiny room called the Clown Car, which we all had to crowd into. From here, we slid into the Superman Slide, where you slide through a hole on your belly, but have to grab the walls in the arrival room with your hands and elbows while you lower yourself to the floor. Here I am coming through the Superman Slide:
This was a tough move for me, and took me a minute. Jewel Cave is one of the largest cave systems in the world, and so is nearby Wind Cave, both with around 150 miles of passages. (It is unlikely, but remotely possible, that the systems connect.) Bigger caves move more air, and this is demonstrated at Hurricane Corner, a hole in Jewel Cave which is the only connecting point between two large areas of the system. Cold wind is always gusting through the hole, so belly-crawling through is difficult as you are being blasted in the face with chilly air. You could occasionally feel the breeze of the cave breathing elsewhere, but here all that air has to roar through this little hole. We turned around and crawled back through, this time with the wind at our backs. Caving usually keeps you warm, but the combination of chillier northern cave and gusting wind made this a chilly part of the tour. We returned back down to the looped rope, which was not easy for me to climb down. Maybe I need to do a little rock climbing and get used to those moves.
Here is our group. Everyone else knew each other, so I just kind of stood awkwardly in the back:
We ascended a few slopes with the aid of knotted ropes, including one next to a somewhat loose rock which we were warned not to touch. The rock was arrowhead shaped, the size of a large motocycle, and loose enough that they don't want it disturbed lest it fall. If that fell on you, you'd be in huge trouble. The first time I took the tour, the guide accidentally (?) let its name slip, then asked us not to tell anyone. So I won't. The toughest part of this tour for me, by far, was a tricky climbing/crawling scramble called Martha’s Teapot. I have no idea WHY it’s called that. Martha’s Teapot involves slithering up a steep, slippery slope on your belly. (On your belly because the ceiling is that close to your head.) The length is probably about 15 feet, and there are almost no handholds or footholds. It is very difficult to push off from anything with nothing but slick mud, especially when the low ceiling is pressing you into the floor. It took me some time, but I did eventually get up the slope. We traversed the Roller Coaster, which is a rather difficult belly crawl which is made more difficult by going up and down hills and around corners like its namesake. After this, we arrived at the Brain Drain, the trip's tightest squeeze. This is the reason they make you crawl through the concrete block on the patio before the tour. The real Brain Drain, however, while certainly tight, is easier than the concrete block. The block makes you squeeze through a foot and half or so of hole: the actual Brain Drain is less than six inches in length. Here I am, halfway through Brain Drain:
And a little farther through:
Note the weird, almost cantaloupe-like texture of the rock. This is what most of Jewel Cave's wild cave area looks like. This is a tour less about stunning sights – the Wild Cave area is not generally all that beautiful – but about caving challenges. You’re squeezing, chimneying, canyoning, butt sliding, climbing up and down, using your elbows and knees. You do, however, get to see rare, very fragile hydromagnitite balloons, which were discovered here!
Random event from the end of the first tour I took here: Our guide was telling us about another guide whom he identified as a “girl”. The one woman on our tour, understandably irritated at his use of “girl” to identify an adult, pointedly asked “was she under 18? Or was she a woman?” Our guide must have completely missed what she was saying (or decided to ignore it) because he answered “No, this girl was probably 23, 24.” She pressed him on the issue, but he still didn’t seem to get it and she gave up rather than lecture him.
Here we are at the end of the tour. We all crawled through the same things, so how is it I ended up dirtier than everyone else?
Should you take this tour? If you're looking for challenge, yes! Difficulty: 10/10. You'll be with a small group, doing difficult things. It is as tough as any wild cave tour in the parks. Only Mammoth Cave at its very most difficult is as tough as this one. Unless you're athletically inclined, this is probably not a great first wild cave tour. It's also not one to take for the scenery. It is, however, a magnificent tour and highly recommended!