Even without a stash of gold, though, Colossal Cave is a treasure worth seeing.Ĭolossal Cave Mountain Park is located at 16721 E. If they did, he said, it's never been found, and park personnel have extensively explored the cave. Our tour guide addressed one popular legend: that bandits hid a stash of gold somewhere in Colossal Cave.
The cave is one of the largest dry caves in the United States. It winds its way up the hill, reaching the high point at 4.2 miles. If you were to go to Colossal Cave they have a telescope to which you can view the castle. The trail climbs to cross a fence line on the boundary of Colossal Cave Mountain Park and then heads for a saddle. It is about half way between Tucson and Sierra Vista on I-10. More extensive tours that utilize CCC ladders and rock-climbing techniques also are available. Cienega Creek is a special place east of Tucson with towering cottonwood trees. The basic tour, on which we were joined by three others on a rainy Sunday morning, follows a half-mile loop and includes information about the cave's history, geology and legends. Colossal Cave Mountain Park is home or refuge to hundreds of species of mammals, birds, and reptiles and who knows about the moths, butterflies, beetles. CCC crews also built the walkways inside the cavern, where the temperature stays in the low 70s year-round. Many of its rock formations were broken off to be sold as curiosities.īut Colossal Cave is still a spectacular place to visit, starting with the above-ground facilities constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. In contrast, Colossal Cave was used for storage by the Hohokam people about a century ago, and after white men discovered it in the late 1800s, it became a hideout for bandits and a target for treasure hunters. No one had ventured into Kartchner Caverns before its discovery in the 1970s, and its designation as a state park has kept it in pristine condition. The other big difference is the caves' human histories. Colossal Cave no longer has water flowing, although it's not technically a "dead" cave - a bit of monsoon runoff trickled into the cave this summer, the first time that's happened in 12 years, our guide said. For one, water continues to flow into Kartchner Caverns, meaning that cave's rock formations continue to grow. They take you through and tell interesting stories of all of the supposed goings-on of the past in the cave (hideout for bandits etc.). On an hourlong tour past the cave's stalactites, stalagmites and other unique formations, we learned while Colossal Cave is similar to Kartchner Caverns in many ways, there also are important differences between the two caverns. It is dry and the rooms are much smaller than Kartchner. Having visited Kartchner Caverns State Park last year, we decided to check out another well-known cavern in the area: Colossal Cave Mountain Park, located east of Tucson.
On the way back from a recent Arizona Highways assignment in Southeastern Arizona, my wife and I were looking for something to do in the Tucson area.
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