Category: Event Listing Date: 2014-07-30
Jewel Discovery
Several hours from the surface entrance new discoveries in South Dakota cave.
Do you have a sense of adventure? That question is asked on the Jewel Cave National Monument website. Certainly Dan Austin, Rene Ohms, Chris Pelczarski, Larry Shaffer and Ian Chechet have a sense of adventure. These spelunkers have spent hours and hours exploring the dark spaces of Jewel Cave. A spelunker is a person whose hobby is the exploration and study of caves.
A recent "adventure" into the cave lead to the discovery of previously never explored areas, some as large as 60 feet tall. You can find a PBS article and audio interview by Charles Michael Ray on the PBS website. Mention is also made on the caves.org forum.
Spelunking was the passion of Herb and Jan Conn whose early adventures into Jewel Cave resulted in the mapping of over 65 miles. One could easily argue that had it not been for the Conns Jewel Cave would not have been explore to the extent that it has been. Jewel Cave may very well have not become a National Monument, one of the worlds longest caves, and one of South Dakota's Black Hills area tourist destinations.