Kartchner Caverns State Park

Monday, 17 December

A slow start this morning as the base office where we had to settle up for last nights stay did not open until 10am.  We enjoyed the sunrise over the mountains sipping on coffee.  

I spent a few extra minutes checking out to ask Brenda, the manger, some questions about visiting again on a future trip.  We learned they also have overflow camping opportunities, some with electrical hook ups, and some dry camping options at another part of the base.  Good to know.

After haircuts, we headed north for Kartchner Caverns State Park (https://azstateparks.com/kartchner/).  When we added it to our list of things to do, all we knew about it was that it was a state park what had cave tours.  The web site highly recommended reservations, which we did not have.

We arrived just after 12pm, and as we paid our entrance fee, the Ranger said we could make the 12:15 tour.  Seemed unlikely as we still had to get Sprinty settled, etc.

When I got to the Visitor Center, I started to buy the tickets and learned there was a tour at 12:45, which we selected so as not to rush.

OMGosh.  What a find.  As Sprinty followers know, we have visited several caves in our travels.  And everyone of them have been unique in some way.  This one as well.

The caverns were found by a couple of college cavers in 1974 who were combing the hillsides looking for caves.  One day, they crawled into a small opening, and quite a ways back, they found an opening about the size of a grapefruit that was exhaling air due to difference of barometric pressure between the inside of the cave and the outside.  They enlarged the opening to about 18” in diameter and wiggled their way through a narrow passage for several hours to find the Big Room part of the Caverns.  Unlike so many caves, this one was pristine - no one had ever entered it, so all the rock formations were intact, no trash, no graffiti.

They originally thought they were on public land.  When they learned it was on private land, the two college guys initially tried to buy the land, but the owner would not sell.  They then told the owner about the cave and the significance of the find.  Fortunately, the owner was an educator and understood the value in keeping the cave pristine.  They then worked the politics to get the area established as a state park, becoming Arizona’s 25th state park.  

For more info on the history, visit:  https://azstateparks.com/kartchner/explore/park-history

Unlike the development of most of the other caves we have visited, there were several years of baseline environmental work to be able to establish the baseline for minimizing impact of developing the cave for tours.  The development was more of mining as they had to carve tunnels into the rock to provide handicap assessable trail in the caverns.  All the while, making great effort to,protect the cave and the formations.  We had to go through multiple air locks, our shoes had to be disinfected as we had worn them in other caves (to prevent the spread of white nose syndrome), and we got misted down on entering to reduce our shedding lint and dust in the cave.

The tour we did was the Big Room tour, as the other tour was closed for lighting upgrade.  We later learned the Big Room tour is not offered from March to October when the bats reside in the cave so as to not disturb the bats.

The cave formations were incredible.  Amazing long, thin soda straw stalactites, beautiful bacon formations, interesting fried egg formations.  The cave is a living cave, in that water is continuing its action to build stalactites and stalagmites.

Our guide, Harley, did a great job of giving the tour.  He even went into some of the geology of the limestone, etc., including the layer where you could see fossils, including crinoids.

The procedures for visiting were the most stringent of any cave we had visited - no cameras, no cell phones, no flashlights, no bags, no purses, no water, etc. allowed.  So no pictures by us.

Another unique feature is that the temperature in the cave was in the 70s, similar to the Natural Bridge Caverns we visited outside of San Antonio.

Located only about 11 miles south of I-10 and the city of Benson, AZ, if caves are of any interest, it would be a worthwhile stop to break up a trip through this area.  As the parking lot was very large, we would endorse their recommendation to make reservations for your tour, which can be done online.  Note that the reservation system does not allow you to make online reservations for the next day, requiring some planning ahead.  We were lucky that today was a very slow day to just be able to show up, and there were only six of us on our tour - nearly a private tour.

As further testament to these caverns, one of the guys on the tour had done the Rotunda/Throne Tour (the one that was closed for lighting upgrade) 8 times and the Big Room Tour once before.  And he was back again.  They also have a Helmet and Headlamp Tour to experience the cave as the discoverers did in 1974 (except you walk the same path) on Saturday’s only.

After the cave tour, we headed for Benson.  Our Plan A for the night was an Escapees Co-Op RV park.  Escapee Co-Op RV parks are owned by Escapees members.  The RV sites are leased by Escapee members under a long term lease.  Availability for Escapees members like us traveling is by owners who put them in the rental pool when they are not there.  They had a couple of regular sites, and lots of dry camping spots.  As dry camping was only $5.58/night (maximum of three nights), we selected that option, which also placed us close to the showers. 

Looking at the site board in the office, it looked like 60% or more of the sites were occupied by their lease holders.  During our walk through the park, it was pretty obvious that many leaseholders’ rigs remain on their site year round.