Not everyone dreams of being covered by tons of earth but that is just where you will when you explore one of the many caves opened for public tour. Most of these caves have been excavated and domesticated so that you walk on lighted paths while you enjoy the drama of the underground. Even with the commercialization, the wonder is sure to take your breath away.

Kentucky is home to the world’s most extensive cave system. Mammoth Cave has around 300 miles of known passages and many more that have yet to be explored. The caverns were created by water working through limestone deposits, dissolving the rock. As the water table has dropped, the narrow tunnels, wide open caverns and other shafts were left. Today, the lower passages are still being carved by the streams and rivers. Mammoth cave is home to stalactites, stalagmites, and white gypsum crystal formation along with rare cave creatures that have adapted to this environment over millions of years. Some of the tours are not recommended for people with fear of heights or tight places and few allow for small children.

Missouri is loaded with commercial (open to the public) caves for you to visit. Crystal Cave is one that will offer one of the most natural tours available in a excavated cave - it is a living cave and is kept as close to its natural state as possible. The guided tour will last around 80 minutes and will take you past steep stalagmites, massive dripstones, perfect fossils and Indian symbols that indicate Crystal Cave was once inhabited.

Hurricane River Cave in northwest Arkansas offers you the benefit of the commercial cave experience or the true, down and dirty, spelunking tour. In the commercial tour, you will walk along passageway that feature stalactites (hanging from the ceiling where they hold on “tite”), stalagmites (which grow up from the floor where you just “mite” trip over them), flowstone, cave popcorn, moonmilk and unique shields - and this is only the beginning. If you must get dirty then the newly available wild caving tour is for you. There are some relatively tight crawls and some pretty physical requirements for this tour. You should be in good physical shape to make this choice.

The central attraction at Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, Tennessee (and the attraction where the cave gets its name) is the massive 145 underground waterfall. The entrance at the top of Lookout Mountain and features a castle made in the fifteenth century Irish fashion. The round trip tour is less than a mile and only a few steps are involved. Weather is not a factor for the underground trip - ran actually enhances the experience by increasing the flow of water to the waterfall.

Cave exploration can be a walk in the park or a climb through the mud. Either way you choose to experience the underground world you are sure to see things that you could only imagine before your tour.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 pm and is filed under Adventure Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.