A hidden wonder of Texas and a great escape from the heat.
It was the last weekend before my last semester at Texas A&M, so Bryce and I wanted to go on one last adventure before our schedules got busier. The whole summer I had talked about going to Longhorn Cavern, but we figured it wouldn’t make sense to go out there without going to Inks Lake since they’re ten minutes from each other. Luckily, we found a campsite at Inks Lake on a Saturday, so that meant it was finally time to go to Longhorn Cavern. My excitement built and built the whole ride there.
We arrived at the cavern about 45 minutes before our scheduled tour in order to check in and explore the grounds above the cave. We started by walking around to different CCC creations of the park. There is an old administration building next to the cave entrance; I love all of the rockwork that the CCC incorporated into their buildings. Within the building, it also had some exhibits for the various workings of the CCC across all the Texas State Parks. Next, we walked over to a CCC observation tower. You could see out over the Hill Country for miles! Time was winding down before our tour, so we had to rush down the sketchy stairs of the tower (Bryce made of me for how slowly I went up and down these stairs) to get back to the Visitor Center.
We gathered up with our tour group and guide and got ready to go down in the cave! Our guide, Mark, told us that it is always 68-70 degrees down in the cavern, so we were pretty pumped about that. This temperature change also helped with the fact that we would be required to wear our masks underground due to being in an enclosed space close to other people.
The first stop along the tour was called “Crystal City” and like its name says is filled with crystals. There were two little tunnels that we got to walk through after Mark turned on more lights in order to illuminate the minerals. Even though this was the first stop, it was already so magical. Mark was a great tour guide and very informative, except I was too into taking pictures to really retain too much of the information (you’ll just have to go check it out and take the tour ;-) ).
There are a couple hundred bats that live in Longhorn Cavern. I was a little nervous at first due to a previous experience with bats, but we came across a couple throughout the tour. They were actually really cute and sat there sleeping so that was a plus. But bats weren’t the only animals in the cave, there was also a dog! Not a real dog though, a dog made of dolomite limestone. This is the Queen’s Guard Dog; it is actually made from a different type of limestone than the rest in that portion of the cave. They aren’t quite sure how the Guard Dog was formed, and they think someone carried it up to that portion of the cave to sit in front of the Queen’s Throne.
Time for some fun facts about Longhorn Cavern. One is that it is an abrasion cave, meaning it was formed and eroded by water that ran down through the ground. It is actually the only cave of this type in Texas. Two, during the Cold War, Longhorn Cavern was actually stocked with enough supplies to hold 2,000 people in case of a nuclear strike in the area. And thirdly, there was a nightclub/dance hall within the cave during the 1920’s. There was a wood floor placed down for the dancing and they would bring bands down to perform for the people.
The whole tour was an hour and half long. Toward the end, we were led to the lowest portion of the cave, which was 120 feet below ground. Next, we walked to another portion of the cave that held some more crystals, the “Hall of Diamonds.” It was completely mesmerizing! Mark also led us through a cool little mind trick. He turned off the lights and told us all to be completely silent. It was so cool to just sit there in utter darkness, although not for too long, I don’t think I could handle that. Before he turned the lights on, Mark told us to wave our hands in front of our faces to see if our eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Turns out, the state of darkness that we were in, we would never actually be able to see our hand. It was just our brain providing an outline of something it thought we should see.
As the tour concluded, Bryce and I snapped a couple pictures of us down in the cave while we dreaded heading back up into the 100+ degree weather. Once we made it back above ground, we hiked the Backbone Ridge Nature Trail. Longhorn Cavern was formed under Backbone Ridge, so we decided to make the hike with the time we had before having to check in at Inks Lake. It was a short little hike, only 0.35 miles long, and it ended at another CCC building, an old cabin. And that concluded our trip to Longhorn Cavern. It definitely met and exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend going out to Burnet, Texas to tour Longhorn Cavern yourself!
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