Sunday, May 1, 2011

What a difference a cave makes

This morning we went on a guided walk in the Diamond Caverns. The whole experience was different from the tour we took of Mammoth Cave. Diamond Cave is a wet cave with plenty of stalactites, stalagmites and flowstone. They have been having tours here for over 150 years! It was named Diamond Caverns because when the first people to explore it saw the calcite shining from their lanterns, they thought they were seeing diamonds.


Honeycomb Limestone ceiling


Cave cricket

We were the only ones on the tour this morning (Just the way we like it!). Our guide, Bryan, was very nice and told us we could take our time to see the cave.






They use to have weddings in the cave. This is the altar.



We got a lot of rain again last night so the cave had a lot of water raining from the roof. It’s a small cave, only 1/2 mile in, but very pretty.


Cut and polished stalactite


1 comment:

  1. That's a very cool-looking cave. I think I went to Carlsbad Caverns back in the late 70's when I was in college. Was on a choir tour and we made a stop there. Sang in the cave a little bit -- it was really amazing to hear harmony in there.

    Chris and I went into a cave out here -- have to ask him if it was in NJ or on a vacation somewhere else. Just can't remember. Seemed very deep, and because it was a hot summer day, the cave was blessedly cool.

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