Tour of Living Cave

[kaima]

I just had an extraordinary experience today. I dropped by Kartchner Caverns in South East Arizona and was lucky enough to get on a tour of the caverns without reservations, and was


Their web page with the same video and more photos is at
azstateparks.com/parks/kaca/

This cave is an extraordinary resource, a living cave where the slow growth of stalactites and stalagmites is continuing as it is available for public viewing. The tour groups are tightly controlled to limit changes in humidity and introduction of foreign matter - lint, bacteria and foreign substances into the eco system that might disrupt normal cave life or the continued progression of stone development from the naturally occurring calcium carbonate solution.









And a view of the tunnel leading into the caverns, entering through air locks to keep cave air humidity as close as possible to natural.
Note that the path throughout is wheel chair accessible, quite a feat, even if it may help to have two husky people to spell one another to help on some long ramps. It is the only wheel chair accessible cave in the US, and (likely) the world.

Image Removed until a smaller one can be found!

[Jaga]

wow, this looks really beautiful. Good that there is something else to see than Carsbad.
I was in Carsbad cverns twice but I was dissapointed, since they are so famous but after seeing caves in Carpathians (also in Slovakia) it was not anything unique.

Ron, you are quite a long time on the South this year. You are almost missing the beauty of Alaska's snow.....no wonder, sometimes we need to have a break.

[kaima]

Jaga,

I only visited one of the ice caves in the Carpathians, perhaps my only European cave. I was in a cave in Texas with a cousin when he was a priest near Austin, but I don't remember which cave it was.

This one is extraordinary for the trouble they are taking to preserve its nature, with air locks, restricted pathways (typical, I guess, but cleaned of lint and bacteria periodically). They say they picked up pointers from other caverns and Karlsbad was a great help in figuring out what to do and not to do with the public.

Then again, the tour guides/ Rangers are cavers and true enthusiasts and not just paid guides, and they have a strong cadre of dedicated, well experienced volunteers.

The weather in Alaska has been terrible. I left them as they got a nice storm with great snow. They cleared up the avalanches that came with that landing on the existing weak layer of snow, and it looked as if it would be a great winter. Then a thaw and rain came in, and one front page photo showed a kid ice skating on the street, and the next day a photo of a small aircraft parked in a circle of water wheel hub deep in surrounding snow. A fine mess, it would seem!

I will be returning Jan 31.

Kai

[Jaga]

It is cold in Idaho but it is beautiful. Right now when I was coming back home the temperature was 7 F. Why is so awful in Alaska this year?

By the way, my brother is a type of the caveman, he is a geologist and loves caves. Near Krakow we have wonderful caves, there are small but nice.....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w-Cz%C4%99stochowa_Upland