Jan and Herb Conn at Devils Tower, 1956Jan and Herb Conn climbing in the Needles - 2000s. Herb belaying using hip belay technique. The Conns did not use harness or belaying devices. They used 80[1] foot ropes, which are about a third of the length of modern ropes, and they usually downclimbed instead of rappelling.[2]
Both Herb and Jan were born and raised on the East Coast.[6] Jan grew up in Maryland, just outside Washington, DC in a household with two older sisters.[7] Jan loved music and played flute, classical guitar and several other instruments.[7] Herb grew up in upstate New York,[5] and graduated from the University of Colorado.[8] Herb and Jan married in 1944.[5][9][10]
During World War II, Herb served as an electrical engineer for the Navy Department in Washington, DC.[6] Jan and Herb spent their spare time exploring the rocks surrounding Washington DC, most notably Carderock where they began climbing in 1942. They climbed and named many of the routes at Carderock, including Herbie’s Horror, Jan's Face, Spider Walk and Ronnie's Leap, which was named after their dog.[11]Herbie’s Horror, first climbed by Herb, was one of the first 5.9 routes in the eastern United States.[12] They also made the first documented ascents of the routes Conn's East and Conn's West at Seneca Rocks,[13] following the pitons left by the mountain troops who trained there. In a letter to the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club Mountaineering Section the Conns describe a visit to Seneca with Don Hubbard: "Don and the two of us climbed the south peak on a gorgeous moonlit evening, carrying sleeping bags, and spent the night on the narrow summit ridge. Don woke up in the night to see the lower half of Jan’s bag flapping over the edge. But Jan was safely curled up in the top half, still anchored to a piton in the rock."[13] In 1944 they started publishing "Up Rope" magazine, which became the official newsletter of the Mountaineering Section of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC).[1][14][15][16]
Traveling climbers
Jan and Herb Conn in their camper
In 1946, Herb was discharged from the US Army and the Conns began a five-year period of traveling and climbing around the US with short forays into Canada and Mexico. They became pioneers of what is now praisingly referred to as dirtbag climbing, which they described in the We work in our spare time article:[17] "it is a simple matter of mathematics - two people working six months a year are just as good as one person working twelve months to support two people". They lived in a self-equipped camper converted from a ten-year-old "panel delivery truck".[17][18] For several years they worked odd jobs and climbed at many locations from Yosemite in California to Mount Katahdin in Maine, making scattered first ascents along the way in places like Cannon Cliff in New Hampshire, Santa Catalina Mountains and Monument Valley in Arizona, Zion National Park in Utah, and Big Bend National Park in Texas.
Herb and Jan usually sought the easiest and most direct routes to the top of the most striking rock formations. Before the development of specialized climbing shoes, harnesses, and protection, like nuts and cams, they climbed in smooth-soled tennis shoes with 80-foot laid nylon rope tied around their waists and used pitons for protection. In the early days, many pitons were US Army issue scavenged at Seneca Rocks after World War II.[19][20] They used body belays and down-climbed their routes instead of rappelling, if it was not possible to walk-off. In spite of this, they established many routes that would be challenging and often terrifying to today's climbers.[21]
In 1947 on a trip to climb Devils Tower,[7][22] the Conns passed through the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was then that they discovered the Needles, with a seemingly unlimited quantity of excellent climbing. They settled in the Black Hills where they made around 220 first ascents in the Needles and published a climbing guidebook to the area. With no other climbers in the area they felt, as Herb put it, "like a couple of cats in an untended fish market."[20][23][24]
Herb Conn doing maintenance work on Mount Rushmore in 1960s or 1970sJan and Herb Conn's self-build house "Conncave"
In 1949 they bought 20 acres in the Custer area and adjacent to the Needles.[5][17][22] A couple years after that they built a small, rustic stone home they called Conncave where they lived off the grid, without running water or electricity, for the next 60 years.[25][26] To help finance their climbing and later caving adventures they created customized leather[27] and wood products. In addition, each fall for 13 years Herb spent a week[1] doing maintenance work filling in cracks on the four faces of Mount Rushmore,[5][8][13][19] and Jan taught guitar and flute.
Caving years
Jan and Herb Conn, Dave Schnute and Dwight Deal in the Jewel Cave, 1959.Jan in Janny's Cranny,[28][29]Jewel Cave, 1959.Dwight Deal, Jan and Herb Conn in the Visitor's Center of Jewel Cave National Monument in 1989 on the 30th anniversary of the Deal-Conn exploration effort. In the background Herb's maps of the cave.
In 1959, geologist, mountaineer and caver Dwight Deal had done some exploration in a small cave called Jewel Cave, a little known monument in the National Park System. He needed some companions who might help him continue his exploration trips there and turned to his friends, Herb and Jan. He asked if they would be interested in grubbing around underground and, after thinking it over, they replied they would try it "once". That one trip turned into a passion of exploring Jewel Cave that lasted for over 22 years, and took over 6,000 volunteer hours on 700 trips.[25] From 1959 to 1979, Herb and Jan mapped 62.36 miles of the interior of Jewel Cave.[6][11] The Conns discovered what is now the Scenic Cave Tour route in 1961. The National Park Service was intrigued by their reports of high, narrow passageways, huge rooms and unusual speleothems (cave decorations) and opened a new tour route. In addition to assisting with the construction of this trail, Herb also designed the lighting system and dramatic placement of lights still in use today. The cave winds that enticed the explorers further into the cave fascinated Herb, and in 1966 he produced an important scientific paper explaining reasons for these barometric winds. The Conn's book, "The Jewel Cave Adventure," serves not only as a record of their years of cave exploration here, but as an exciting tale of adventure even for non-cavers.
In years 1963-1965, when exploration trips into Jewel Cave were restricted, the Conns joined David Schnute exploring Wind Cave. In 1963 the trio found new passages breaking away from the known portion of the cave and allowing them to discover, name, and survey 15,740 feet of virgin passage.[30][31] They largely retired from caving by the early 1980s.
Jan Conn as musician and artist
Jan's musical play, Run to Catch a Pine Cone, has been performed throughout the country.[5] She composed many songs and melodies,[32][33][34] was a founding member of the musical group "French Creek Folk" (Custer, SD), taught music in the Black Hills area, played flute and guitar[5] (and sometimes stand-up bass), and sang and yodeled — even underwater on occasion.[35] Jan also was an accomplished rubber stamp artist.[36][37]
Legacy
Search for the mystery fern cartoon depicting search for Asplenium × alternifolium in Black Hills[38]
In a 2008 interview for Climbing Magazine the Conns explained: "I know sometimes people think we had this high dream of living like this, in a place like this … it wasn’t that way. We just kept backing away from the things we didn’t like. This is where we landed."[3] In a 2008 talk, Jan said that they no longer climb rocks, but still enjoy the outdoors. She said, "Fortunately, the slower we move the more we see.[7]
In summer of 1985, Herb and Jan Conn were awarded the Conservation Service Award by the Secretary of the Interior, Don Hodel.[11]
On September 17, 2011, Herb and Jan were inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in recognition of their pioneering exploration.[13][19][39] Soon afterward Herb's health failed and on February 1, 2012, he died in his sleep in his home near Custer, at the age of 91.[19][25]
Herbie's Horror (5.9) - When Herb Conn first climb it in 1942 using top-rope, it was one of the first class 5.9 routes in the eastern United States.[40][41][42][43]
Conn, Herb and Jan (Jan. 1977). Chasing the Winds Through Jewel Cave. In Sloane, Bruce (ed.) Caver, Caves and Caving. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ. 409 p.
Conn, Herb and Jan (1982). The Very Important Shortcut. National Speleological Society News: 300-302.
Conn, Jan (1986). Run to catch a pine cone : a musical fantasy (musical score). LCCN88750012. OCLC17768529.
^Deal, Dwight (August 1962). Geology of Jewel Cave National Monument, with Special Reference to Cavern Development in the Black Hills of South Dakota (M.S. thesis). University of Wyoming. p. 192.
