We reserved a morning and afternoon cave tour. Between tours, we ate lunch in the light.
Our first tour took us to King's Palace, a tunnel only accessible to guided groups. It is near the Big Room. In 1898, Jim White, a 16 year old ranch hand, noticed what he thought was smoke on the horizon. Concerned, he went to investigate and discovered it was thousands of bats flying out of a cave. Jim began exploring the cave over the next several years. He often went alone only guided by his candle lantern. His lantern only lit his path 15 to 20 metres ahead of him. He marked rocks to help guide his return. White discovered several tunnels like the one that led to King's Palace. Within King's Palace, there are four chambers. Each chamber has a diverse variety of cave features, for example, stalagmites and draperies, and a flat floor, a very unusual feature in caves.
view of large section of roof that fell thousands of years ago
view of ceiling extending into darkness
cave pool
Our second tour was through Left Hand Tunnel. It is a candle-lit lantern tour through an undeveloped section of the cave. The dirt trail winds over uneven surfaces with some steep slippery slopes, around cavern pools and fragile formations.
This is the gift store and restaurant where we ate our lunch on Sunday.The tunnel begins by the seating area of the restaurant.
Our one photo from the tour!
Today, the outside temperature dipped to 4 degrees Celsius and it rained in the afternoon. A good day to be underground! Cave temperature is about 13 degrees Celsius (on average).
Kudos to the two of you for venturing into the unknown and without a guide! Yikes!
ReplyDeleteThe section from the natural entrance is well-traveled. We also walked by two rangers during our one and a half hour descent.
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