RtS: Black Chasm National Historic Landmark
 

Rank the Swank - Museums and Sights


Overall Swank Rank

Black Chasm National Historic Landmark
15701 Volcano Pioneer Road
Volcano, CA
3/24/07
http://www.caverntours.com/BlackRt.htm


The Lowdown
Casual day trip randomness leads to unexpectedly pleasant activity.

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The Gig
Standard cave formations plus a very impressive wall of helictites

The Scene
Lani and I took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday to do a back roads drive up into the Sierra foothills.

Our ostensible destination was the Indian casino at Jackson, California, but we didn't really care if we ever made it there. It was just a general target.

Along the way we saw signs for Black Chasm in Volcano, California. It claimed to be a "national natural landmark" but all of the signs were of obviously not Park Service origin so we assumed it would be some lame tourist trap. But we had nothing better to do and followed the signs.

Now, Black Chasm is not one of the great cave systems in the world. I've been to Carlsbad, Crystal Cavern, and around a few others.

But I was surprised just how impressive this 50-minute ($12.50) tour was. It hits just three rooms in the cave (the guide/manager said they hope to expand it to six or seven within a few years) but there are plenty of your basic cave formations to see.

The real reason to stop by if you're in the area, though, are the helictites. Helictites are a relatively rare cave formation that look like they grew in water, or a zero-g environment.

Take a look at this picture of the best formation (more pictures here) and if that doesn't make you want to see it yourself then you're boring.

The tour requires climbing down (and then up) about 200 steps but they aren't that bad and you're given plenty of time if you need it.

Swanky caves are cool. (And I'm glad to know I'm not boring, as this would be way fun to check out!)

Very cool! I've been itching to go for a exploratory drive lately. (I went for the flight instead.)

Ooooh, cavy. Perhaps I won't make it up to Black Chasm, but this definitely reminds me that I need to go find some caves somewhere to tour.

Mitchell Caverns is the closest I'm aware of in SoCal.

Ooh, that would make a good detour on the next road trip to Vegas.

Boyden Cavern in Kings Canyon National Park. We almost did this on our last trip to the area but the lines were long (even early in the season). So no direct experience of how interesting it is.

Boyden's cool and an easy add to a Kings Canyon camping trip ;) - but I prefer Crystal Cave in Sequoia, but a lot of that has to do with the front gate installed curtesy of the WPA:

Yup, Crystal Cave is awesomeness. Boyden has been touched everywhere - the rock is all dirty and dead.

I've got some pics of that spiderweb in albums somewhere :cheers:

VAM for a random cave visitation.