Tour of Kartchner Caverns State Park

We arrived at our destination of Huachuca City, AZ late yesterday afternoon. The Tombstone Territories RV Resort is really nice with a large community center that offers tours, daily activities and a Friday night "JAM" session for musicians. We plan to attend that social time as we have discovered many talented musicians along the way.

Our goal today was Kartchner Caverns State Park once we got warm enough to move that is. We awoke to a record cold of about 17 degrees. It is expected to be around 10 degrees tonight....a big burrrrr for us. But I digress. Arriving at the park we were informed that had we made reservations for a tour (online or by phone) we would have saved the $6/vehicle parking fee. The Park also includes a RV camp for $25/night, hiking on designated trails (which translate to - no cross country hiking), a day picnic area and a parking lot that accommodates motor homes.

 

The visitor center is very informative and has a lot of inter-active consoles in which to discover the history of the caverns. Discovered in 1977, designated as a state park in '88 - it was opened for tours in 2003. The tours are good, if a bit on the expensive side ($22.95/pp+tax), and there are 3 different tours one can take, the longest is 1hr-45min - The Big Room tour. Groups are small and  the Big Room has an age requirement of 7 yrs old.

No cameras or cell phones are allowed so most of the photos in the "additional photo roll" are from the visitor center interpretive center...


"Fried egg" stalagmite example



Lunch in the Bat Cave Cafe was really delicious roasted red pepper/chicken quesadilla and Starbucks coffee. Desert was free, the Dichos - the Mexican take on fortune cookies and they had fortunes. Mine was "an old friend is the best mirror" and Mike's was "following the path, no one will get lost" - nice.

As we left I looked over to the small cactus garden and noticed that one of the prickly pears was hosting a bird's nest.  They also host a hummingbird trail outside the center.

 

Bird's nest in the cactus - cool.

Check out the park website :http://azstateparks.com/Parks/KACA/index.html for more information and to make reservations. Also the caverns are closed Apr 16 2011 to Oct 14, 2011 - to accommodate the 700-1000 pregnant bats to roost, give birth and raise they young. Never mind the maintenance time to clean up bat guano - park rangers have interesting jobs. Counting bats and cleaning up bat poop.

Enjoy the short video from the inter-active component of the visitor center, one of many.

Adios!