page_title: Jan and Herb Conn
section_title: Traveling climbers
hierarchical_section_title: Jan and Herb Conn / Traveling climbers
caption_attribution_description: English: Jan and Herb Conn self build house "Conncave" near Custer, SD
context_page_description: Jan Conn and Herb Conn were climbing and caving pioneers. They are credited with establishing many classic climbs in areas like Carderock in Maryland, Seneca Rocks in West Virginia, Cannon Cliff in New Hampshire and Black Hills of South Dakota. They are also well known as cave explorers who in the 1960s and 70s discovered and mapped over 60 miles of Jewel Cave, making it the world’s third longest cave system.
context_section_description: 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: "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". 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 cheap smooth-soled tennis shoes with 80-foot laid nylon rope tied around their waists and used US Army  pitons scavenged at Seneca Rocks after World War II. 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 or even terrifying to today's climbers.
  In 1947 on a trip to climb Devils Tower, 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."
  In 1949 they bought 20 acres in the Custer area and adjacent to the Needles. 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. To help finance their climbing and later caving adventures they created customized leather and wood products. In addition, each fall for 13 years Herb spent a week doing maintenance work filling in cracks on the four faces of Mount Rushmore, and Jan taught guitar and flute.
caption: Jan and Herb Conn's self-build house "Conncave"
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