Burnet, TX
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| The Ranger / Tour Guide Took our photo here |
My First Cave
Today we went to Longhorn Caverns State Park. Burnet TX is about an hour west of Austin. The drive got us 2 new counties. Donna and I wanted to visit one of the many caves in the area and chose one associated with a Texas State Park. The tour was about $25 each and totally worth it. We booked a noon tour and there were 5 of us including the ranger. It was great to be able to have an intimate tour and I feel like we learned and saw a lot more than we would have in a larger group. They run tours every hour and they last an hour and a half so we ended up passing 2 tour groups, one on our way in and one on our way out, and they were both much larger than our group.
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| Heading to the CCC built building which was also the start of the tour. |
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| The cave entrance is at the bottom of a sink hole. Everyone can go into the sink hole but you have to pay for the tour to enter the cave. |
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| The guide had a backlight and used it a lot to show Calcium Carbonate which showed that water was still dissolving rock and creating formations. |
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| Quartzite Crystals in the Cave |
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| Bats were in the cave. These were Tri-colored bats and they are solitary. They are here year round and semi hibernate the few times it gets really cold. |
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| At some point the cave was used as a night club. This was where the stage was |
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| The cave was also set up as a fallout shelter during the cold war |
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| Different layers of rocks. The brown rock is chert. |
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| When debris blocked the flow of water through the cave system the water found easier paths. Sometimes those paths were above the debris so "Attics" were formed. |
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| There was one section with 60 feet of 3ish ft. clearance. We had to walk carefully. |
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| The Ranger held a laser up to the Quartzite and showed how it diffused light and reflected it back. |
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| After the tour we visited the CCC built observation tower. |
It was a great drive and the state park was really cool. Totally worth the entry fee. If you missed yesterday's post you can find it here.
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