Kartchner Caverns (128) - (from Tucson)

The following day we headed for Kartchner Caverns, a drive in a south easterly direction taking about 45 minutes. We were originally going to visit Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico which has much larger caves. Apparently the largest of the caves in Kartchner is only about 15% of the size of the largest cavern in Carlsbad. However, due to the access roads to Carlsbad not being major interstate highways and my preference in winter to use major routes only as our primary route, we decided to miss Carlsbad and going to see Kartchner would make a great alternative.

When we arrived at the cave reception area, we were advised that cameras of any kind are not allowed underground, thus we don’t have any of our own photos to post in the blog. In some ways that’s not too bad as stalagmites and stalactites all look pretty similar from cave to cave, but capturing the moment in time when we were there would have been rewarding. Thus, for memorabilia, we've obtained some photos from the web.

We were also asked which tour we were taking. Until then, we weren’t aware there was more than one tour. The tour we’d booked to see was called the Throne Room, conjuring inappropriate images of a large toilet. The Throne Room contains one of the world's longest (21 ft 2 in/6.45 m) soda straw stalactites and a 58-foot (18 m) high column called Kubla Khan.

The alternative tour is to the Big Room which contains the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk (as we didn’t take this tour, your guess is as good as mine what that looks like, even after I’ve searched through google, I’m none the wiser; this tour is closed during the summer for several months (April 15 to October 15) each year because it is a nursery roost for over 1,000 cave bats.

The caves are carved out of limestone which have been growing for 50,000 years and longer, and are still growing due to the cave’s management procedures. To get to the cave’s entrance, we rode several hundred metres in a tram towed by an electric tug, and had to wait outside the closed cave doors until the group before us exited. (In case you’d like to plan your own trip there, they don't allow strollers or walkers on the tour and children under 7 are not allowed, thankfully Rochelle's 8). As we entered the caves through an airlock door system, we were sprayed with a fine mist of water to prevent any pollen particles or similar that might be on our clothing from falling off our clothes and starting to form their own colony.

The air was very humid and the underground temperature was around 26°C – before even seeing any of the cave formations, the first thing that struck us after entering was the smell - it was very noticeable and was similar to that earthy, tropical scent, not at all bad and the only simile I can express would be to say it was like walking in a country area in the Philippines, very humid and and warm.

History
The caverns were apparently unknown to man until 1974, when two amateur cavers found a narrow crack in the bottom of a sinkhole, and followed the source of warm, moist air toward what ended up being more than 2½ miles of pristine cave passages. Hoping to protect the cave from vandalism, they kept the location a secret for fourteen years, deciding that the best way to preserve the cavern, which was near a freeway, was to develop it as a tour cave.

After gaining the cooperation of the Kartchner Family and working with them for ten years, together they decided that the best way to achieve the goal of protection through development as a tour cave was to approach Arizona State Parks. In 1985, the then Governor Bruce Babbitt secretly left the state capitol with two bodyguards and spent three hours crawling through the cave's tight passages to reach the cave's showcase chambers, including the Big Room, Echo Passage and Cul-de-sac Passage.

The discovery of the cave was finally made public in 1988 when the landowners sold the area to the state for development as a park and show cavern. The state spent $28 million on a high-tech system of air-lock doors, misting machines and other gadgetry designed to preserve the cave.

Kartchner Caverns, still in an almost untouched state have almost 4 kilometres of passages, and two rooms about 200 metres long, was opened as a state park November 12, 1999.

The last part of our tour was in a viewing area to see Kubla Khan. There were a number of rows of seats arranged in an arc, and as we were very fortunate again to be the only people in this tour group, we were advised to sit in the centre. The lights were dimmed and they started a music CD that coincided with changing lights that illuminated different areas in the cave, highlighting the large, central column of Kubla Khan.

We were also the last tour for the day and there was no human noise at all – once the CD finished, there was complete and utter silence for at least 2 minutes. Our guide broke the silence to say we’d better leave but also commented on how infrequently she was able to enjoy the complete silence, due to the usual chattering voices of other incoming tour groups and those in her groups. It was indeed a wonderful way to finish our underground tour.

We returned to the reception area, retrieved our cameras, water bottles and everything loose that was prohibited in the caverns from the lockers, raided the omnipresent gift shop and headed off for our return trip home.

We had a day of rest and schoolwork the following day and planned our next adventure for the day after to Old Tucson Studios.