Just a few miles from San Antonio
and
New Braunfels
Texas, are Natural Bridge Caverns,
the largest commercial cavern in the state of Texas. These Texas caves are included in the National listing of
Natural Landmarks.
Natural Bridge Cavern contains several geological formations including
stalagmites, stalactites, and columns. There are also seemingly
bottomless pits and underground streams. Guided tours of Natural Bridge Cavern are offered
for a small fee. While you are there you can check out the
Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch
or you can test your rock climbing skills on the
Watchtower Challenge
or fly up to 25 mph down a
zip line.
San Antonio Natural Bridge Cavern is named for this
65 ft limestone bridge-like limestone formation. The cave
entrance is directly below the bridge. The bridge was formed when a sink
hole caved in leaving only this limestone formation. The bridge is at the entrance to the
cave and the beginning of the Natural Bridge Cavern Guided Tour. This area
of the cave is located next to the Natural Bridge Cavern gift shop and
information center.
On March 27, 1960, four students from St. Marys University discovered a crawlway that eventually led to the rest of the rooms of San Antonio Natural Bridge Caverns. This is the
hole that those four explorers crawled through. Directly preceding this entrance you is the remains of an 8000 year old black bear jawbone that once took shelter in these caves.
Explorers have also found evidence that Native Americans once found shelter in the shallow parts of the caves. This area of Natural Bridge Cavern is the first room you will see
on the Natural Bridge Cavern guided tour. The discovery entrance room contains a stalagmite that you are allowed to touch. This is the only cave formation in Natural Bridge Caverns that you are
allowed to touch due to the corrosiveness of human contact.
Directly after the discovery entrance on the Natural Bridge Cavern Discovery
Tour (guided tour of Natural Bridge Cavern) you will come to St. Marys Hall.
Named after St. Marys University where the students that discovered San Antonio
Natural Bridge Cavern in 1960 attended. This area of the cave contains beautiful
cave formations that can not be seen elsewhere in the cave.
These unique formations look like moistened scoops of ice cream lining the cave
walls. Most cave formations are dripping or wet looking. This moisture is part
of the formation process.
Plutos Anteroom is about 108 ft below the surface and is the first large room
that you will come to in the Natural Bridge Caverns guided tour. This room is
probably the most known room in the cavern. This room was appropriately named
for Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. The room is exactly what you would
expect from its name. The centerpiece of the room is an elevated area with a
giant limestone pillar stretching from the floor to the ceiling. Scattered
around this large pillar is an assortment of smaller pillars. A person can
imagine the large pillar being Pluto and the pillars around it being his generals
and minions discussing strategy in his anteroom.
Sherwood Forest is about 180 ft below the surface and is the second large room
in the Natural Bridge Caverns Discovery Tour. It contains tall stalagmites
formations that look like tree trunks. There are other tall formations in the
cave but these are unusually slim for their height. This room was named after
the forest near Nottingham, England that was made famous in the Robin Hood
Tales.
The Fairy Castles, is a
grouping of stalagmites that resemble the spires of a fairytale like castle. The
Fairy Castle room is part of the Natural Bridge Cavern Discovery Tour right after
Sherwood Forest and right before the Castle of the White Giants. With names like
Plutos Anteroom, Grendels Canyon, and Fairy Castles, the person that named the
formations in this cavern had a great affinity for fiction.
Grendels Canyon, named for the beast in the epic poem Beowulf, is about 207 ft below
the surface. When seen from above Grendels Canyon seems to be a bottomless pit.
Grendels Canyon reaches an additional 70 foot into the earth from a section of
the cave that is already hundreds of feet deep. This is one of the most eerie
stops on the Natural Bridge Cavern Discovery Tour.
The Hall of the Mountain King is the largest room on the Natural Bridge Cavern Discovery Tour. Its lowest
depth is around 135 ft below the surface. Due to many layers of the ceiling in this room
collapsing over the years, this room has developed a dome shape. The Hall of the
Mountain King has many beautiful formations including the fried eggs, and what
seems like fields of stalagmites. The real beauty in this room though is its
vastness. Due to the amount of lighting in this room, if you stand in the middle
of the room, half way up the slope, it appears that the room and the limestone
formations go on forever.
At a maximum depth of 211 ft below the surface, Purgatory Creek is the deepest point
on the Natural Bridge Cavern Discovery Tour. This area can be viewed from the
ledge of a walkway high above the creek. This walkway is reminiscent of a narrow
bridge over a canyon that you might see in movies.
The Castle of the White Giants is famous for several large well formed limestone
formations. Among these formations are The Watchtower, The Kings Throne, The
Mount of the Landlord, and The Chandelier. The Watchtower:
At 50 feet tall, The Watchtower is the tallest column and one of the most famous
limestone formations in Natural Bridge Caverns. The Watchtower is the first formation that
you will approach as you enter the Castle of the White Giants. The Watchtower
Challenge outside of the caverns was named after this formation.
The Kings Throne: The Kings Throne, in the Castle of the White Giants, is the most magnificent
of all of the stalagmites in the
caverns. It stands 40 feet tall and has a huge mushroom shape. The
Kings Throne stands between the Watchtower and the giant Mount of
the Landlord.
The Mount of the Landlord: The Mount of the Landlord, in the Castle of the White Giants, is a very unusual formation.
It is a large mount that looks like a mound of mud. The Mount of the
Landlord is very wide at the bottom and narrows to a curve toward the top.
This formation stands almost as tall as the watchtower but is several times
bigger around.
The Chandelier: The Chandelier, in the Castle of the White
Giants, is a beautiful formation hanging from the ceiling of the.
It hangs just above the Mount of the Landlord. The
Chandelier is a bright colored formation that is shaped like a chandelier, as
you might have guessed from its name. You almost get the feeling that the
Chandelier is an ornament that was hung by the white giants that live in the
castle.
Emerald Lake is about 135 ft below the surface. If you look down at it from the
ledge above it, Emerald Lake appears as just a puddle of water. The walls
surrounding Emerald Lake has a line of discoloration caused by contact with
water over the years. Emerald is one of the last stops on the Natural Bridge
Cavern Discovery Tour.
Possibly the most interesting site on the discovery tour is the Valley of the
Fallen Lords. The name given to this room is fitting as the hundreds of small
stalagmites look like a birds eye view of a bunch of small people. The tiny
formations are on the side of a decline that seems to slope gradually downward
forever. It is easy to see how the name Valley of the Fallen Lords was given to
this section of the cave. This is the last stop on the Natural Bridge Caverns
Discovery Tour.
The Chandelier:
