Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Cave of the Winds


Kerosene Lanterns in the Dark...


After our sojourn to the Garden of the Gods, we traipsed up the highway to the Cave of the Winds. One of the major attractions in the Colorado Springs area, the Cave of the Winds is one of the larger open caves, and is the largest commercial cave in Colorado.



I had visited the cave years ago with my family, but it had been long enough that I felt it was time to play the tourist and visit again. I had no interest in the wimpy 45 minute basic tour. I know plenty about cave geology and didn't really want to take a tour along well lit concreted paths with guardrails. Caves should be dark, spooky, and totally awesome.


Taking a flash photo of these stalactites made them glow for a few seconds afterward, a very cool effect.


So we opted for the longer, and slightly more expensive, "lantern tour." This tour took us beyond the normal part of the cave into the un-electrified and slightly spookier part of the cavern system called "The Grands." The whole tour was done with only the feeble illumination of our kerosene lanterns, which was an entirely new way of spelunking for me.



The tour guide spoke mostly about the history of the cave, with plenty of spooky stories to freak out the girls. Tales of mummies, spiders, and ghosts kept us all entertained. I must confess though, that after the Paris Catacombs, it takes more than a dark place to freak me out. Now a dark place with the bones of a few hundred thousand dead Parisians, yeah, that will do it!

1 comment:

Zach said...

You sure are hitting all the Colorado sights lately. It's like you're on vacation there.