Even though I am free from the medical anchor which has kept me more or less close to home this summer, I’m still working on the local bucket list, and all I had was one last cavern to visit – Mercer Caverns. This one is close to the last one I toured (Moaning Caverns), so I got to drive through Murphy’s again. I like that town. Mercer Caverns pretty much has the same history as all the others along the Sierra foothills – it was discovered by a gold miner (Walter Mercer in this case) in the late 1800’s, who noticed a breeze coming out of the ground, dug a hole and found the cavern. He explored it with a geologist, who told him it was all limestone, so forget about finding gold. But as with the other caverns, Mr. Mercer decided to turn his worthless mining claim (which he bought for $1) into a money making tourist attraction. He died young after a bad fall in the cave, but his family and future owners continued to explore and upgrade the tourist route through the years. And much like some of the other caverns, the tour follows a series of steep stairs and narrow passages which lead to small rooms, each with interesting features which the tour guide points out. Kind of sounds repetitive, because it is. So I’ll try to keep this post relatively short for a change.
I was by myself once again (sigh), so motored down to Murphy’s, arriving a few minutes after 11AM. This place does not take reservations – they are pretty casual about when the tours start, apparently based on when enough people show up. Today, they ran the tour at 11:30 as a few small groups showed up after I got there. I was planning to use the GoPro again to capture some video, and had the chest harness and camera setup, but was told that video cameras were not allowed. Huh? They mentioned that on their Website, but I assumed they were referring to the large cameras that serious videographers use, not a very small GoPro firmly attached to my body. Plus every phone and my, what they called a still camera, take high resolution videos. I asked why, and was told “that’s the rules”. No other explanation. Fine….I tossed the harness and camera back in the car. A very dumb rule.
So, I got to the head of the line, and after a quick intro by the tour guide, down we went. This was the actual entry point that Mercer hacked out – you can see the hole from the first anchor he used to rope down the hole, next to the plaque.
The stairs leading down were quite steep and narrow, and not as well lit as in some of the other caves, but with solid railings to hold on to. There were also a few tight spots where taller people have to duck to avoid smashing your head. There were four or five landings on the tour where we stopped and gathered to view some of the classic features you see most caves – stalactites and stalagmites, columns, various flow features. Each of these rooms were fairly small, but were well lit to highlite the features.
Because the rooms and passages were so narrow, the owners placed plexiglass protectors along the cave walls in a number of places, to keep visitors from touching anything. That made it difficult for photography, but I managed to get some good shots, mostly with my phone. I hardly used the Sony camera swinging around my neck (I really need to buy a harness for that thing).
The very last stop had the one unique feature for this cavern – some incredibly delicate and beautiful aragonite crystals, which won a major award at the Paris Worlds Fair in 1900.
After we reached that landing we headed back up, stopping for the traditional candle and lights-out display, and then continued climbing back up the 17 stories of stairs to the top. Phew.
I’m totally caved out now – this was a nice tour – great tour guide, nice people in the shop (that’s where Zoltan resides). But after four other tours, the aragonite crystals were the only feature that stood out for me. And I was a bit annoyed with the slightly rude response I received by one of the staff about why I could not use the GoPro camera (“cause it’s the rules”). Whatever. It was an enjoyable outing.
The Website for Mercer Caverns has quite a bit of detail on the history and geology of the caverns.
http://mercercaverns.net/index.html
I hung around, waiting for my heart beat to climb down to normal after the climb out, and then headed home. But, I just had this absolutely desperate need for ice cream. Fortunately, there are two shops on Main Street in Murphy’s, which I had to drive through, so I picked one…it was a vry good choice.
No more caves for a while. There are caves in other parts of the state – Lava tubes around Mt Lassen and Lava Beds National Park, and a few around Sequoia National Park. I may eventually get to those. The only one I’m interested in now is Mitchell Caverns, in the Mojave Desert.
The Traveling Widower 