In my last blog, RVing Across Tornado Alley, I mentioned that my next post would be about caves and caverns in the United States and Europe, so here it is! I hope you enjoy it!
Let’s start in America!
Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico
I’ve been to Carlsbad Caverns, located in the state of New Mexico, twice. The first time, my family hiked in. The second, we took the elevator down to the bowels of the cave and hiked out. Both experiences were great – although I can say that hiking into the cavern was a bit easier than hiking out of it. When you hike into the cavern via the Natural Entrance Trail, you descend 754 feet before reaching the end of the path and taking the elevator back up to the visitor center; however, when you ride the elevator down to the end of the trail, you have all that distance to hike up and out of the cave, which is what makes the latter option a little harder than the first.
Two weeks before my first visit to Carlsbad Caverns, there had been a power outage in the caverns, meaning all of the lights in the cave went out. If you’ve ever been on a cave tour and your tour guide turned out the lights, you know how dark it gets inside a cave – pitch black. So dark that you can’t even see your hand two inches from your face! Well, imagine what that would have been like when you and over a hundred other people are hiking inside a cave? Although I didn’t get to experience that, I think it would have been really exciting. The whole time we hiked, I secretly hoped that all the lights would go out – even if it was for only a few seconds. I was prepared, too. I even brought a few flashlights!
My family also attended the bat flight program, which is an event where you can sit in the open-air amphitheater right outside the cave entrance and watch as millions of bats fly out of the cave. It’s quite amazing. At first, as the sun began to set, only a few bats flew out of the cave; but not long after, the whole sky above us was cloaked in a blanket of fluttering black wings.
Kartchner Caverns, Arizona
My family visited Kartchner Caverns on a chilly, wear-all-your-layers February day – which is why the cave was so inviting! Kartchner Caverns stays at a year-round temperature of 70°F (21°C), so it was the perfect cave to visit on a freezing cold winter day. The cave also has a year-round humidity of 99%, which is nice for a few minutes, but makes it a bit harder to breathe.
Here are two pictures I found of the caverns as open source content online.
Along with tours of the caverns, Kartchner Caverns State Park also has a lot of great hiking trails through the surrounding foothills. A few days after touring the cave, my family revisited the park and took a relatively short hike to stretch our legs. It was one of many beautiful desert hikes I’ve done with my family. I especially love seeing the various types of cactus, super-spiky ocotillo, and yucca plants. I also love the serene feel of the desert – it’s so quiet, peaceful, and vast. It spans for what seems like forever. In my opinion, the desert is a great place to meditate or deeply think about something, whatever’s on your mind. There’s plenty of room to work things out – and plenty of room for imagination.
Mammoth Cave, Kentucky
Mammoth Cave is currently the world’s longest cave system, and one of the “seven wonders of the new world.” Over 400 miles have already been mapped and explored, but that’s not to say that that’s all, as new discoveries are currently being made.
My family took the two-and-a-half hour guided tour through the cave, gazing at all the amazing cave structures. My favorite part, however, was passing through Fat Man’s Misery and what I believe was called Tall Guy’s Agony. Fat Man’s Misery is a narrow, winding passageway in the cave. For myself and my younger sisters, it wasn’t much of a problem, but that wasn’t the case for some of the visitors behind me. After the cave tour, one of my sisters asked our tour guide if anyone had ever gotten stuck in Fat Man’s Misery, and to our surprise, nobody had – yet.
After Fat Man’s Misery comes Tall Guy’s Agony. As you can probably guess from its name, this section of the cave lacks in height. Even my youngest sister had to hunch over in one area! Both Fat Man’s Misery and Tall Guy’s Agony are short (but fun!) passages to squeeze through, and lead to more underground adventure.
Luray Caverns, Virginia
Luray Caverns in Virginia is unique because it’s to home of the Great Stalacpipe Organ, an organ that plays the stalactites. It was invented and installed inside the cave by Leland W. Sprinkle in 1956, and to this day, visitors of Luray Caverns can listen to songs played by the Great Stalacpipe Organ. I especially enjoyed listening to the Great Stalacpipe Organ play one of Mozart’s sonatas.
Luray Caverns also has an amazingly clear reflecting pool – in the picture, you almost can’t tell what’s above the water and what’s below! The cave structures are also spectacular. Several look like bubbling science experiments, frozen in time, while others look more like giant calcified harp strings. And sometimes you even come across formations that look like common items, such as popcorn (called cave popcorn), fried eggs, and bacon! In the pictures below, you’ll also notice the vibrant colors of the stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. Caves and caverns are so amazing!
Now let’s cross the pond to Europe!
Dobšinská Ice Cave, Slovakia
Dobšinská Ice Cave in Slovakia is amongst one of the largest ice caves in the world and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. When my family visited the ice cave, it was a sweltering hot summer day; but when the time got down to a few minutes before we could enter the cave, everyone began bundling up in their finest winter attire. Several children even pulled on snow pants! The second our tour guide opened the thick, metal, safe-like door, we got a feel for the crisp, icy atmosphere of the cave and were let into a placid underground winter wonderland. Frozen waterfalls cascaded from the walls, jagged ice stalactites hung down from the ceiling, and chunks of broken ice glistened like diamonds in the artificial cave lighting. Smooth ice a shade of whitish-grey flowed over the ground within the cave, and I can’t help but imagine how cool it’d be to ice skate on it. Just imagine – ice skating in a cave with such a magical, frozen landscape! Not to mention ice that’s thousands of years old. And speaking of cool frozen features inside the cave, don’t let me forget about the ice tunnel!
The sights left me in awe. Dobšinská Ice Cave really is something straight out of a fairytale.
Demänovská Cave of Liberty, Slovakia
Demänovská Cave of Liberty, also located in Slovakia, is another spectacular Slovak cave. In one area of the cave, there’s a beautiful emerald-green lake which distinctly reflects the stalactites above and surrounding cave structures. The water is so clear that it’s almost like it isn’t even there – you can clearly see everything below the water’s surface. Unfortunately, there was a photography fee, so I don’t have any pictures from that trip; but like I’ve done for Kartchner Caverns, I’ve pulled an open source picture from the internet and attached it below.
Wieliczka Salt Mine, Poland
Finally let’s visit a salt mine! Though not strictly a cave or cavern, this is so extraordinary that I just couldn’t leave it out of this blog.
Wieliczka Salt Mine, located in Krakow, Poland, is one of the most famous salt mines in the world (and a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Even though I visited this mine when I was four years old, I still remember running my little fingers along the salt-covered walls (and tasting a bit), stopping to look at statues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs carved out of rock salt, and pretending that a dragon statue in the cave occasionally came to life and sneakily snagged people for dinner. However, my clearest memory of the salt mine is of St. Kinga’s Chapel, a chapel in the mine carved entirely from grey-colored rock salt – the floor tiles, altars, and even the chandeliers! I still remember gaping at all the intricate carvings sculpted from rock salt, trying to take it all in.
St. Kinga’s Chapel was canonized by Pope John Paul II on June 16, 1999, and a statue of the pope was added to the chapel alongside a sculpture of Our Lady of Lourdes.
If you ever find yourself traveling through southern Poland, you’ll definitely want to make Wieliczka Salt Mine a must-see stop.
Dare to explore!
Vivienne
