Kartchner Caverns State Park

The Kartchner Caverns State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is situated 14 kilometers south of Benson or about 90 km southeast of the city of Tucson and is considered the " crown jewel " among the state parks of Arizona.

The park includes the majority of Paleozoic rock formation and the enclosed caves on the eastern flank of the Whetstone Mountains in the Coronado National Forest. The caves themselves are in limestone and contain impressive stalactites and other speleothems, which are partially understood in growth since about 50,000 years ago.

History

The caves were apparently unknown until their discovery in 1974. At that time, the two amateur cave hikers Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen had found a small gap on the bottom of a sinkhole, and a stream of warm, moist air were followed. They discovered as a more than 3 km long system of caves untouched. To protect the caves from vandalism, the two held the location secret for fourteen years and only spoke with the code word Xanadu, the name of an underground city from the poem " Kubla Khan " by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, about the cave. Kubla Khan is in this poem, the ruler of an underground city, therefore, the highest formation in the " Throne Room " was baptized by the researchers also " Kubla Khan ". They came to the conclusion that the best way located near a highway caves would be to get it to expand to a show cave.

Having the support of the Kartchner family, the landowners, had secured and had worked with them for ten years, she finally realized that the best way to preserve the caves would be permanent, to contact the Arizona State Parks. In order to keep the exact location of the caves secret until recently, led Tufts and Tenen even the representatives of the state parks blindfolded there when they introduced them the caves. 1985 visited Bruce Babbitt, the former governor of Arizona, the caves, where he had to squeeze three hours through narrow passages before the later show caves - including the Big Room and Echo and cul-de -sac passages - reached. The discovery of the caves was finally announced to the public in 1988, when the landowners sold the site to the State, so that it could be converted to the later state park with a show cave. The history of the discovery of the Kartchner Caverns, the author Neil Miller claimed in his book of the same.

The State of Arizona has invested a total of 28 million U.S. dollars to install a system of airtight doors, humidifiers and other technical facilities that are designed to ensure the preservation of the caves. The Kartchner Caverns were opened to the public in 1999.

Number of

The caves proved to be very popular and had in the first three years, more than 750,000 visitors. This is more than twice as much as was provided in the master plan of the park in 1992.

Accessible and non-public areas

The two main attractions in the public area of ​​the Kartchner Caverns are the Throne Room ( = Throne Room ) and the Big Room ( = Great Hall ). The Throne Room contains one of the world's longest stalactite in the form of a " soda straw " (= " drinking straw ") with a length of 6.5 m and a 18 m high, Kubla Khan said post. In the Big Room are the largest moon of milk deposits in the world. The Big Room is accessible only from 15 October to 15 April each year, as it serves as a nesting ground for over 1,000 vespertilionid bats in the remaining months.

In addition, the mud flats, the Rotunda Room, the Strawberry Room, and the cul-de -sac passage belong to the public areas of the caves.

In addition, there are numerous areas of the cave system, which has been made ​​accessible to visitors. These include the Thunder Room, the Grand Canyon, the subway tunnel, the Mushroom Passage, the Pirate's Den, the Granite Dells and the echo passage.