Top 5 Show Caves

Caving is a unique experience, it challenges the mind in amazing ways from route finding, 3 dimensional navigation and overcoming fears, while working the body in a kind of exercise that it usually doesn’t see.  There are typically two kinds of caves, Show Caves and Wild Caves.  Show caves are actively managed by a national park, private company, campground, or someone.  They often have lights strung up in them and many times have had paths cleared through them that remove the need to do any climbing.

If you’ve never gone caving before and if you don’t know if you’re claustrophobic or not you should try a Show Cave first.  Show caves commonly have lights strung up in them and marked paths.  Often you can go as part of a tour group or walk the paths at your own speed.  You do not need specialized equipment for most of these caves and if you do they are typically included with the cost of entry.  Although a guided tour dosen’t sound all that exciting show caves have a lot of nice features.  Many of the tours bring people through areas where there is no light pollution or turn off the lights for a bit so you can experience true darkness.

There are fantastic photo opportunities in show caves that you can’t get in wild caves without hauling in a bunch of lights and remote flashes.  Many cameras will still focus within show caves due to the extra light as well where as in wild caves head lamps often don’t allow enough light for auto focus to correctly work. To make the most of your cave photography set your camera to a Manual exposure and stop the apature down to 5.6 - 8.  The shutter speed will be long so set it up on a railing or a tripod.  Set it so that a flash will fire at the end of the exposure.  Stand in front of the camera and press the shutter it’ll beep and then right before it closes the sutter the flash will fire.  This will allow you to get a good capture of the cave formations using the light from the cave’s lighting system.  The flash will fill you in so that you look properly lit with the backgound also having intersting formations.

If you’re within driving distance to any of these caves they’re well worth checking out.

1. Mammoth Cave - Longest cave in the world, over 365 miles of passages have been mapped through Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  To give you a sense of scale Kentucky is only about 200 miles wide at it’s widest point.  Mammoth cave has numerous tours throughout it’s passages from lantern tours, to fully lit cave walks.  They have a few wild cave tours as well but you’ll need to make reservations well in advance.  http://www.nps.gov/maca/

2. Jeita Grotto - The formations in this cave have a true sense of beauty about them, the cave is beautifuly light with lights and maintains a very plesant temperature year round.  There are massive lakes within the cave ringed with huge works of flowstone art. http://jeitagrotto.com/

3.  Waitomo Cave - Located in New Zealand this cave is incredible.  Rivers flow through the cave and you can take either a rigid boat tour or grab an innertube and float the cave.  While the second option is very cold the highlight of the cave is the fact that it’s lit by hundrededs of thousands of glow worms on the ceiling.  You can navigate by headlamp or by the light cast off their incandescent bodies.  http://www.waitomo.com

4.   Carlsbad Caverns - Aside from Cave of the Swords this has some of the most impressive formations I’ve seen in person.  The cave is populated with millions of bats as well and each night at sun set the swarm out of the cavern in a huge Transylvanian cloud.   There’s an amphitheater setup so that you can watch the sky get blotted out by bats.  Carlsbad has more wild caves that you can visit as well if you’re feeling more adventerous.  The main room is very well lit up and has a full cafeteria and elevator access for those who don’t feel like walking the long steep hike down into the main room. http://www.nps.gov/cave/

5. Cave of the Swords - For me this cave would take close to first place if it were open.  Cave of the swords was discovered recently in northern Mexico and contains the largest crystal formations in the world.  The cave is extremely hot with tempeartures around 150 degrees and most people can only stand it for a few minutes, a private company has bought the land the cave is on and is working to install massive air conditioning units and fans to make it a tourist attraction.  They’re hoping to open it in 2009.  Here’s a few amazing pictures.

For show caves dress warm and bring some water with you as food and water are not available on the tours.  There are also no restrooms in caves typically so use them before hand.

Eric Starling is a photographer and webmaster.  He has attempted to write 5 novels.