Kartchner Caverns: Travel Wonder Below
Posted in Family Fun, Scenery, Southwest, Travel | By Shelley Gillespie | Tags: Caves, Natural wonder, State Park, Tours, US Domestic Travel
A sense of wonder is truly important when exploring the natural world. When you visit Kartchner Caverns, you will be amazed at how nature performs. A drive south of Tucson, Arizona leads you to an eye-opening display where colors and formations dazzle you underground.
Kartchner Caverns entrance
Over millions of years, the stalactites and stalagmites built up by the steady dripping of water with calcite deposits (remains from prehistoric times) develops into the intricate and gorgeous formations. The colors and variations are due to water, wind, terrain, humidity and the earth’s shifting.
Taking a tour of Kartchner Caverns (tours are required and there is a fee), provides the opportunity to see these formations with a knowledgeable guide from the Arizona Parks Department or a well-trained volunteer.
Kartchner Caverns - Flowstone and Stalactites -© Arizona State Parks
Taking a tour
During the spring and summer, only the Rotunda Room tour is available because other inhabitants (bats!) are living in the Throne Room. However, the Rotunda Tour is still very satisfying, a 1 ½ hour trip below ground that is very organized and regimented, but extremely informative.
Before the tour, prepare to place any possessions in a locker or leave them in your vehicle. That includes cameras, cell phones, water bottles, handbags and other equipment. Lockers are provided that require four quarters. Be prepared. They are very strict about this. Technically, cell phones are not allowed, either. (You won’t get a signal, so just as well to leave it in the locker).
At a gathering place outside of the very modern visitors’ center, twenty or so people start each tour with a tour guide to explain the rules –
1. Don’t touch any of the formations!
2. Put your hand on the rail and step back a step!
3. Don’t touch! (That was repeated – often.)
Then, a tram ride led everyone to the entrance area to the caves. Mustered inside, we were alerted to the fact that we would be sprayed so we did not bring lint into the cave, which affects the formations.
The gigantic rooms of the cavern have winding pathways, constructed to prevent damage in the rest of the caves. They follow the original explorers’ paths. (More on the cave discovery later.)
Kartchner Stalactites and other formations - © Arizona State Parks
A living cave
Kartchner is a “living” cave in that it is still growing. Inexorably, drop-by-drop, formations still have water dripping to develop more and bigger formations.
The tour guide details how even one touch from a finger puts oils on the surface of the formation, causing a deviation in the track of the water. Scrupulous efforts are made to remove any evidence of man’s visits so the water can do its wonders.
Formations
Flowstone, walls of living crystal, is gorgeous evidence of eons of water seepage. The tour guide points out a formation where you can see the crystals, but, mostly, the surfaces look smooth.
“Soda straw” formations are very thin, hollow formations that start from the ceiling and drip down to the floor. There is one that is 21 feet long!
Stalactites suspend from the ceiling (“C” – ceiling).
Stalagmites come up from the ground (“G” – ground).
Bacon – it really looks like bacon!
Drapery – there is a curve that makes the formation look like an elegant drapery.
We were challenged to come back when one soda straw met its ground connection. Based on the miniscule growth per year, I figured that we’d need to return in 72,000 years! If we could also find the Fountain of Youth on the premises, I’d be glad to make that reunion!
Kartchner - "Soda straws" - © Arizona State Parks
Finding the Caverns
An intrepid caver, Randy Tufts and another caver first found evidence of the cave in 1967. Tufts returned with Gary Tenen in 1974 and began exploration. The caverns they found after negotiating a 200-foot tunnel stunned them.
Bringing their discovery to the lands’ owners, they worked to keep the discovery secret so it wouldn’t be destroyed by inconsiderate visitors. The owners decided the best thing to do would be to sell the land to the State, so they could protect it.
That whole process was kept as secret as a massive purchase and law could be to prevent the vandalism they had found in the entrance to the caves.
Finally, after many years, the caves were readied as a state park and opened to the public in 1999.
Traveling to the Caverns
The roads lead easily from the Tucson, Arizona area. Reservations ahead of time are strongly recommended. Until early September there is a discount on tickets.
The tours leave every twenty minutes or so and are small groups.
A small theater offers an informational film that provides background on the cave and its discovery.
If you are not afraid of being below ground – it is big and expansive, not a tight, small cave – this travel experience is highly recommended. It is one of the top 10 caves in the world for its views and formations. (Some of the top 10 are not even open to the public.)
Tags: Caves, Natural wonder, State Park, Tours, US Domestic Travel