5 August 2010
A BETTER DESCENT INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE EARTH … UM, TEXAS
After the so-so experience I had at
Longhorn Caverns, I really wanted to get a good feeling from the day (and I
hadn’t gotten it there). There was still
enough time left in the day, so I drove across to Georgetown to where I knew there was an awesome
set of caves, because I’d been there twice.
Inner Space Caverns.
I’ve visited twice before. Once was in March 2003 when my parents came
to visit me in Austin the first time (so all got to explore it’s newness
together), and second was about six months later or so when I took Brian there
so he could experience the Underdark personally.
Inner Space is located off of
Interstate 35, right in the southern most section of the city of Georgetown . For miles on either side of it, the highway
has the road signs to lead you right too it.
Once you take the exit for it, you’re only about five-thousand feet from
the entrance to the parking lot. Yes,
it’s that close. I knew the reason why,
but you’ll learn as you read along.
It now was in the high 90s this
afternoon, so going into a cave that would be a constant 72 degrees was going
to be an awesome treat. I paid my
admission fee, and learned a group was just minutes from getting ready to
depart. Since it was just me, it was
easy to squeeze one more in. And there
was just time enough to use the facilities.
THE THIRD TRIP:
NOTHING NEW, BUT JUST AS GOOD
At the beginning of the tours, the
guide always asks if any one has been there before. It’s a good way to know who the repeat
customers are. The guides here have
always been college students, doing this as a summer and/or weekend job. If you don’t mind saying the same stuff over
again every hour, it can be a pretty fun thing to do. I envisioned myself as a retiree doing this
not because I needed the income, because I liked it, and it was a good way to
escape the heat.
One of the reasons why this cave is
special was the story of its discovery.
I’d heard it before, but during the tour the tale is told in chunks so
visitors get specific visuals to go along with it. Other caves were discovered because someone
noticed cool air coming from some location, and worked their way into a smaller
known cave only to find a larger hidden area.
Inner Space beats them all with its discovery. Here’s the basic skinny.
Back in the early 1960s, Texas decided to build
an overpass to make travelling around Interstate 35 much easier. As the workers drilled holes in order to be
able to set the support structures for this bridge, they kept losing drill bits
down this particular hole. The newest
member of the crew, who was also the skinniest, got the job to stand on the
drill and get lowered into the hole to see what the issue was. I’m sure he didn’t willing volunteer. The man knew he’d been lowered into some hole
(as that was usually the cause of the loss of drill bits). He turned on his flashlight, and was greeted
with the sight of a huge cavern that was actually large enough to place
regulation American football in.
The work crew realized the
importance of their find, and notified the appropriate officials. Construction paused as the cave was
explored. The caves stretched
perpendicular to the highway for a great distance on either side; and that was
just they could reach. The plans for the
overpass were modified slightly so it be at the narrowest point of the cave in
order to minimize any environmental impact.
Part of what is known as the
Balcones Fault (which runs under a large portion of Interstate 35 as it passes
through central Texas ),
the cave was made from limestone which had been carved by water. Its age was estimated at being 100 million
years old. Geologic investigations
showed the cave had been open to the outside at least 20,000-40,000 years
before plate shifting sealed it up.
Bones of some Ice Age critters were discovered inside.
In order to make this a commercial
cave, an artificial entrance was constructed on the far western side. A small tram is used to take the visitors
down at a steep angle to a point slightly lower in elevation than the cave, and
then you get to follow a short path which goes up twenty or thirty feet. This is designed to see the natural cooler
air in the cave, as the rising warmer Texas
air won’t reach down here. Keeps the
cave ventilated, too. It also does allow
a small amount of bugs or bats to now find their way into the cave, but Inner
Space can close the entrance at night to minimize that.
This is what is called a “living”
cave. That means the as the water seeps
into the caverns, it brings in minerals which form stalactites, and other
interesting formations. This process can
take hundreds or thousands of years, but when you look at the rock, it looks
like it’s bubbly or soft. A federal law
has been passed to make it a fineable offense to be caught touching living rock
formations, because of how it can damage the geologic action. The oils which are naturally secreted by
mammals will halt this natural process.
One person touching a rock won’t do it, but many people repeatedly doing
it will.
Inner Space has one nasty-looking
black rock, probably about the size of an adult’s forearm, located near the
entrance to show you what will happen after repeated touching. They encourage you to touch it to feel what
the rock is like, and to get any “touchy” feelings out of your system.
They also mention it’s good luck if
you received what’s called a “cave kiss.”
That’s a fancy name for feeling some limestone-filled water to drip on
you. It’s fun also to add these
anthropomorphic qualities to inanimate objects.
After a small cave section past the
entrance, the tour brings you to the “discovery cave.” This is the football field-sized room which
was the first one ever viewed by modern humans.
There are some lights spaced out here and there to allow ease of
walking, but it’s purposely kept darker (better for the formations that
way). The guide points out the circular
holes in the ceiling created by the very first drilling, and you could see they
weren’t too big around. These holes were
later filled in once the artificial entrance was created. After the tour group is given the background
information of the cave’s discovery, the guide turns out all the lights so you
can get a sense of how dark this is, and how little a single flashlight
illuminates it all.
As we go deeper into the cave, the
various formations are pointed out by the guide using her flashlight. These formations are named for what someone
thought they looked like. Just like images
in the clouds, some imagination may be required to see why something is called
what it is, but others are pretty apparent.
One, for example, is called “Lake of
the Moon,” because someone thought this was what the surface of the Moon would
look like. Although this was a far cry
from the grey powered Lunar surface we’ve come to know, at the time Moon’s
surface _was_ still a mystery.
The cave then opens up into another
room, this one with a noticeable difference.
The trail curves around to the right, and a hand-rail separates the
public from the sunken floor about ten or so feet below. That is where during the initial exploration,
partially-fossilized mammoth bones were discovered. Because the bones are in the transitional
stage, they can’t be removed from the area without destroying them.
At a section not too far past this
was a display built which shows some of the bones they were able to extract,
and there’s paintings which show the critters which they’ve found here. The paintings are done in the style of
“cavemen art” found in other caves, but the ones here are strictly a modern
creation. And no human bones have been
found in the caves.
The tour takes us past what you
first think is just another formless rock formation, until the guide points out
this was the section which was formerly opened to the outside (some 10,000
years ago). The geologists who inspected
it reported that it must’ve been a large hole in the ground at first, where
many animals fell into during the time it was opened. Due to the movements of the tectonic plates,
some of the edges of the hole collapsed, and other sections tumbled over to
seal it up. So it ends up that what the
guide was showing us was what had been a cave-in. Only a narrow portion was cleared in order to
allow groups through to further sections of the cave.
The tour takes out as far as the
cave’s explored and opened up for the casual visitor, at which point you
back-track to the artificial opening.
There is second section of the cave system which goes in another
direction completely. That section is
for the more experienced caver, and requires helmets, lights, and clothes you
don’t mind getting dirty. The caves are
much bigger than two portions. Through
small holes off the main section can be felt breezes or heard the sound of
running water. The portions of the caverns
which haven’t been opened up (which no natural entrance has been found) are
marked with coloured lights which mark the furthest a human can reach.
As you can see from the two shots
above, depending on the light present in the cave (or the power of your flash),
you can either see the light as a beacon in the murky dark, or brighter
illumination allows the texture of the formations to be captured clearly.
I had another good experience at
Inner Space, so it made a nice closure to the day. Okay, the ice cream I bought on site also
helped. Of all the caves in central Texas I’ve been in, this
was the one I liked the best, and would come back to again.
More information could be found at: www.myinnerspacecavern.com
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