11/10/2023 0 Comments Colossal cave vs kartchner cavernsThank you again for giving us this opportunity to address your concerns. In the over 50 years my husband and I have been here, we have made it our life’s work to protect Colossal Cave and to prevent any such damage from recurring. People didn’t have the same conservation concerns in those days as we (and you) do now. Kartchner Caverns was voted the best cave in the United States in the 2016 USA TODAY 10Best Readers’ Choice Awards. We understand that it become sport to enter the Cave and break off formations as souvenirs. The state park is a pretty special place. Much more recently-in 1879-the Cave was “rediscovered” by a local rancher, and it was highly publicized. obviously we have no way to determine how these early people viewed the formations or what they might have used them for. Colossal Cave was used by humans as early as 900 a.d. The damaged formations are indeed unfortunate, although I want to assure you that the damage is not recent. Although there are some damaged formations in the Cave, there are many more that are intact, and we have a wide variety of beautiful formations, many quite rare, such as boxwork, helictites, aragonite, solution remnants, and cave coral. We will revisit this with the guides, to ensure that their tours are informative and leisurely enough for all the guests. There is a fine line between tiring people out with too much information, and giving them too little information or time to appreciate what they are seeing, and we try very hard to get it right. I’m sorry to hear that you found the tour of Colossal Cave rushed. The cave tour itself will last approximately 45 minutes. If you only have a short amount of time, save it for another time. If you have time in Tucson, the cave is worth seeing. There is a $2 discount for the cave tour for students and military members. Kartchner Caverns is widely acknowledged as a beautiful example of carbonate cave development, is one of the top ten caves in the world in terms of mineralogical and cave formation diversity (Hill, 1999), and is a major tourist attraction in southern Arizona. There is a cost to enter the park itself and a seperate cost for the cave tour. This provides everyone more awareness of why we need to protect the natural wonders if we expect future generations to be able to enjoy them as well. The first owner of the cave who offered tours highly encouraged people to take home a souvenior. As the guide mentioned, this was caused by both natural and man-made reasons. As previous posts have mentioned, there is damage to some of the features. Since the cave itself is mostly at ground level, it does not get too cold inside, and since it is dormant it is not damp as well. It is not far from the center of Tucson and does not require prior reservations, so it is easy to bring friends and family to visit. Colossal Cave is a nice tour to spend an afternoon.
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