The hike into the cavern starts with switchbacks (fifteen turns, I counted them) winding down the side of a hill, below the Bat Amphitheater, entering a large dark hole seemingly cut into the side of some rock. How long has this been here? How long have the bats been coming here, utilizing it as their home late spring to early fall? How has it played a role in the evolution, development, and social characteristics of bats.
There are switchbacks and trails descending 750’ feet into the Earth. As I walk down, I am inspired, I feel a wonder inside of me. My eyes need to adjust to the dim lighting that has been installed. I am walking very slow and carefully. This will be a long day! At the end of the switchbacks, I have entered what appears to be a huge room. I wonder if I am at the bottom, and I am unable to write for some time due to the lack of light, as the light that is present is located along the floor. I walk along this room for a little bit, then the trail starts going down again.
I can see lights in the walls, and I approach another series of switchbacks. It is really amazing. I feel it becoming colder, too, as if there is a slight breeze, and just then, I come upon a dimly lit sign with text content and a graphic showing the flow of air into and out of the cave based on air temperatures in and outside. I keep walking and the trail levels out after the end of the switchbacks (this time there were nineteen turns.) I seem to be in a big room still, and maybe I have reached the bottom now.
The trail leads into a portal, the room narrows. I marvel at the engineering and construction that had to take place to provide access like this. I am blown away! This narrow portal, walls a few feet apart and a low ceiling, reminds me of Wind Cave in South Dakota. In a short time, it enters into another big room, then there is a third set of switchbacks (eleven turns) leading farther down. There are places where the cave walls look smooth, other places the walls appear rough. There are stalagmites and stalactites along the way, more so now than I had noticed earlier. In some places as the stalagmites reach up, they nearly touch the stalactites coming down, though not quite. Now I enter another narrow section, and it curves, having a big curve contained within it. I have to bend over some in order to not hit my head on the roof, while still heading downward. The portal opens into another large room.
There are several people here. It is a guided tour of the King’s Palace, which is another section of the cave system. The guide, a park ranger, is talking and leads the group away, down some additional switchbacks. My trail starts to climb for the first time, again utilizing switchbacks, through another narrow section. I wonder if these narrow sections are natural, I imagine they are, or if they have been created, or at least expanded, by humans to allow people to walk from “room to room.”
After this narrow section, it opens a little into a fourth larger chamber. The chamber has the appearance of being tilted sideways. I see the space as slanting downward left to right, and the trail is at the bottom of the right side. Then it come out into open space, and there are signs indicating I have reached the end of this trail, 1.25 miles that descended 750’. This intersects with another trail, into something called “The Big Room.”
That section took about an hour. It has been magnificent, magical, mystical. I am amazed once again my Nature. I start the Big Room trail, which is kind of an oval loop of another 1.25 miles, according to the sign. There are some parts where there are so many stalagmites and stalactites that I don’t think one could accurately count how many there are. And there are these other phenomena that looks like waves or ribbons coming out of the walls. All these formations have been created by moving or dripping water, which carries and deposits minerals, and these minerals grow into these structures. Nature’s art. It is an amazing spectacle to show Earth processes to create artistically what humans could not do. The colors, textures, physical features all put together to create the impossible. There seem to be so many natural forces and phenomena working together to create this, to create this beauty.
In darkness, unseen and unknown, these things were created.
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