My sister and I decided to hit up some natural wonders that are not too far from home that we have never been to/experienced before. Looking stuff up, we found out about Natural Bridges and Moaning Cavern near Vallecito, CA. In this post I am going to talk about Moaning Cavern. Stay tuned for another post about an equally awesome place to visit right by this cavern!
This cavern is steeped in history. It was discovered by miners in 1851, but remains of humans have been found at the bottom of this cavern that are much older than that. The miners were searching for gold in this cave, but didn't have much luck. They were some of the first people to successfully explore the cave and then exit the cave intentionally, unlike some of the unfortunate victims remains which were found deep in the shaft. According to our guide, some of the oldest remains found in North America were found in this cavern.
Moaning Cavern is the largest single chamber cavern in California. It can comfortable fit the Statue of Liberty inside the main chamber. The main chamber, which is where the walking tour leads guests, is 165 feet tall, but the overall size of the cavern is about 410 feet deep. The picture below will give you a better idea of the caverns overall shape. Nobody goes down to the very bottom of the cavern any longer.
One of the most unique things about this cavern is the 100 foot spiral staircase that was built inside the cavern. According to our guide, the staircase was built from reclaimed steel from WWI (or was it WWII? he didn't seem too sure) ships, then soldered in place from the ground up around 1922. The staircase is still in use today and features the original steel.
I have to say, I am afraid of heights, and walking down this staircase had my knees shaking. However, it was an amazing experience. You start out on the tour in the actual visitor center for this family-run operation. Do a little souvenir shopping before the tour begins. They first show you the original entrance to the cavern, which you can still use via rappel.
After seeing the ropes dangling in open air a hundred feet plus from the group while walking down the stairs, I decided this was never something I would be okay with doing. But if you are into this kind of thing, it is probably an awesome experience!
I also really want to commend the staff that run this. My sister is extremely sensitive to certain types of lights, and they allowed her to walk part way down the stairs to see if she could handle the lighting before we purchased our tickets. They even made an exception for her and said she could take her water down there with her if she needed it. They have a strict no food, water, gum policy on this tour. I thought this was very kind and thoughtful of them. Every employee that we met was very nice and polite and quite knowledgeable.
Also note that you really do NOT need a jacket for this tour. You will actually stay quite warm walking down and then up the stairs. If you are naturally a cooler temperature and are typically colder than those around you (such as my sister) you might bring one just to be safe, but most people will be fine for the 45 minutes they are in the cave.
After you view the original cave opening, you then begin the decent, which is again inside the visitor center. I was shocked when I first learned this, and I think it's pretty cool they built the whole building around this entrance. The first picture below is the initial decent into the cavern.
As you can see in some of the above pictures, the first sets of stairs are all wooden. The stairs are quite narrow as well as very steep, and the walls are a tighter squeeze for some in certain areas. I have fairly broad shoulders, and at 5'10" I felt comfortable "pushing" through some of these areas. I never had to squeeze through anything, and only one or two times watch my head on some of the protruding rocks. Others on the tour did mention that they got a little claustrophobic on these parts, but the passages "felt" open to me, so they didn't bother me.
After the wooden stairs you reach a platform where you can look down into the cavern. It's pretty intense but also very beautiful. If you have a hard time with heights or stairs, this might be a good place to stop the tour.
The two pictures above were taken from this first platform. While here the guide talks about some of the unique formations in the cavern, and about how depth perception is really off. Things look much closer and even smaller than they really are, because there is no sunlight to cast real shadows and help our brains interpret what we see.
After that, you begin the climb down. Overall, there are 235 stairs in this tour. I'm not quite sure how many of them are in the spiral staircase, but I would guess 2/3 of the steps are here.
The staircase is enclosed in a sort of steel cage, so you do feel pretty safe walking down. I took it nice and slow and told myself not to look out over the edge. For the most part I was successful. It is MUCH easier going back up, if more tiring.
From the bottom of the spiral staircase you get some fantastic views of the cavern. Some of my pictures are more "bright" than others; this is because I took in a DSLR and took some slightly longer exposures, which allowed me to get more light/features in my photos. Some areas are quite well lit, while others are more dark.
After we all had looked around for a few minutes, our guide pointed out more features and named some of the specific stalactites in the cavern. Because there was no one repelling, he even turned off all the lights for it. I have never been in pitch black like this before; it was amazing. You literally cannot see your hand waving your fingers in front of your face. It was really awesome. There were a few small children on the tour, though, and after about a minute I heard the little boy next to me start telling his mom he needed the light back on. It was so sad and cute. I showed him my glowing bracelet, and that helped for a minute, but our guide heard the boy too and said he wouldn't turn the light on...*dramatic pause* but he would light a candle. It is incredible how bright a single candle seems after the pitch blackness of the cavern. Such a small amount of light really allows you to see so much.
After that he did turn the lights on to "cathedral lighting" where just a few of the furthest lights were on:
It was very beautiful. After this point in the tour, you were able to start the long 235 step trek back up the stairs into well-lit civilization. My sister and I stuck around for probably 5-10 more minutes taking photos and chatting with the tour guide before we started back up.
Overall I'd give this a 5/5 star rating. The tour is $15.95 per adult (around half that for child) but you can print a $1 off coupon from their website online. If you are into interesting geology and just a cool cave in general this tour is a must-see. They also have quite a few other activities you can do here, such as their new zip-line, rappelling, a more adventurous exploration tour of the cavern, a rock climbing wall (above ground) and more. I linked to their website at the end of my post.
Enjoy the rest of my photos!
http://www.caverntours.com
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