Jewel Cave National Monument Highpoint Trip Report
Date: July 22, 2011
Author: Fred Lobdell
reconnaissance only
Highway US 16 passes through the national monument, and I stopped at the visitors center
to pick up a brochure. The monument boundaries are unmarked by a fence,
so for this liner a GPS unit will be required.
The HP appears to be at the northeast corner of the national monument.
Where US 16 leaves to the east the border is marked, but the ascent from here
would be quite arduous, the road cut being near-vertical,
and parking problematical.
About 2 miles east of the eastern national monument border there is a
Forest Service road (FS 680) going north. This both shows on the
Black Hills Forest Service map and is signed at the intersection with US 16.
The map shows it as turning west and ending a little more than a mile
from the corner of the national monument, but the topographic map shows
additional roads continuing to quite close to the northeast corner of the
national monument. I didn't explore these FS roads.
The Mitchlers are listed as First Ascenders of this national monument HP,
and it would be interesting to see a description of how they did it.