|
Like most people who’ve grown up within spitting distance of Hershey, PA, I had visited Indian Echo Caverns on school bus trips. Most of my memories of those trips consist, however, of drooling over fake Indian drums and feathered tomahawks in the gift shop.
So it was with some curiosity that I took my two-and-a-half year old to see the wonders of the caves two decades after I had last seen them for myself.
Upon entering the gift shop to purchase our tickets, I glanced around in vain for the kitschy fake Indian toys. Instead, I saw a much more upscale gift shop complete with specialty candies for which my daughter made a bee-line. She was also fascinated with the large chest of sparkling fool’s gold that a child can stuff in a bag and keep as a souvenir for a small fee.
After dragging my protesting daughter away from the tempting array of “squishable” candies, we went outside to await the start of our tour. The tours leave once an hour at ten past the hour and the Caverns are open year-round closing only on Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s. The caves remain at a constant 52 degrees Fahrenheit, so it’s certainly a nice break from the summer sun. It can be chilly, however, so a sweater may be in order.
Julia played happily upon the slides and swings until our tour guide, Jared Hostetler, gathered us all together and led us towards the cave entrance. Before we descended down to the actual cave mouth entrance, Jared the guide pointed off across a sleepy green meadow basking in the mid-afternoon sun and an un-prepossessing white house and explained that we would soon be standing right underneath their locations. We then descended the 71 stairs to the entrance … and, yes, there are 71 stairs, the couple behind us counted them as we went. For those of you traveling with small children, the elderly or the infirm, please be aware that no strollers or wheelchairs can negotiate the caverns.
At the bottom of the stairs is the entrance that has a beautiful view of the Swatara Creek. Jared the Guide informed us that Indian Echo Caverns had been formed by the flow of moisture through limestone over several millennia. It is estimated the formations are around forty-four million years old. The first peoples to discover the caves were the Susquehannock Indians who built a village of long houses across the creek from the cave entrance. Indian artifacts were discovered within the first chamber of the caves, called the Front Room. It is supposed, however, that the Indians never penetrated far beyond the entrance for no Indian artifacts or traces were ever found farther back in the caves. It seems they only used the entrance area to store food and to escape from the heat during the long, hot Pennsylvania summers. It is surmised that the Indians were afraid to venture farther into the cave system for fear of evil spirits, although no one knows for sure.
 There are certainly traces of other explorers, however, for they left their names and the dates of their exploration carved upon the very walls of the cavern. Most of the dates are in the mid-1800s as the cavern was opened commercially in 1929. Seventeen hundred lights are presently installed within the caverns lighting the pathways as natural sunlight does not reach far within the cavern’s depths. This was amply demonstrated to us at one point when Jared the Guide turned off all the lights to give us an idea of what it would be like to be lost within the caverns without a source of illumination. As there is no source of natural light, you cannot even see your fingers in front of your face let alone the way out to the sunlight. My daughter, who isn’t frightened of anything, took the darkness in stride. Another little boy in our group was extremely frightened by the absence of sight, however, so I suggest you keep that in mind and prepare your smaller children for the event. It would also help for you to hold tightly to your children during that part of the tour so they do not blunder into the walls in a panic.
We learned as we moved into the largest cavern in the cave system, the Indian Ballroom, that the actual rock formations within the caverns consist of a variety of mineral deposits such as flowstone, stalactites, and stalagmites. Flowstone is created when mineral water flows over other natural rock formations, creating shapes reminiscent of lava flows, only in shimmering whites and grays. Stalactites are, if you remember from your middle school science classes, rock formations that hang from the cave ceilings formed by the slow, patient drip of water over eons. They come in a variety of fantastic shapes and sizes, hanging suspended in frozen splendor.
Stalagmites, the formations that thrust upwards from the cavern form, also grow into bizarre shapes that sometimes meet and merge after millennia with the stalactites hanging from the ceiling to form columns. Jared the Guide explained that the stalactites and stalagmites grow at the rate of an ice-cube sized addition every 100 to 150 years while flowstone grows three times faster. The cave’s natural formations are extremely fragile, however, and touching the formations are strictly forbidden. The reason behind that rule, which is punishable by law and a stiff fine, is that the oil from a person’s hand creates a “dead spot” upon the rock over which the mineral water will no longer flow. And, as it is the mineral water that causes the growth of the formations, depriving the rocks of the water consigns them to a rock formation’s equivalent of death.
There are several other chambers within the caverns including the Blue Room (named for the blue limestone formations), the Rainbow Room, and the Wedding Chapel. The latter came by its name fairly as it has been the site of between 30 and 40 weddings. There are also two separate “lakes” within the caverns, the Crystal Lake and the Mirror Lake. Although, I use the term “lake” loosely as at the time I visited, Mirror Lake was more like Mirror Puddle, being only a few inches deep. It still lived up to its name, however, as it accurately reflected the rock formations hanging above it so that it was difficult to tell where the rock ended and the image began.
As the caves were formed by moisture, they are quite damp with water running down the walls and puddling on the floor and can be slippy at times so wear rubber-soled shoes. A sump pump has actually been installed within the Indian Ballroom to control the level of water as a necessity against flooding. Jared the Guide, after pointing out the fanciful formations named by previous tourists upon a section known as Imagination Wall, then showed us the level many times our height to which Hurricane Agnes flooded the caverns.
The next stop on the tour was the section known as Wilson Cavern. It is so named because it was the home for 19 years to the Pennsylvania hermit, William Wilson. Wilson retreated to the caverns in 1802 after his sister, who meant the world to him, was wrongly executed for a crime of which she was innocent. Wilson worked for a farmer who owned the nearby land doing odd jobs for food and clothing during the day. He then retreated to the caverns by night. He attached a rope ladder to the cavern wall that allowed him to reach a level ledge which juts out over the cavern floor about 10 feet off the ground. Soot blackens the walls and the underside of the ledge from the fire he used to warm his rocky bed from below. While this made for a comfortably heated rock mattress, it may have proven his undoing. When Wilson failed to show up for work one day, his employer went in search of him only to find him dead in his bed. While Wilson had reached a ripe-old age of 50-something, which was the normal life expectancy of the time, it is still speculated that he actually died from smoke inhalation as the cavern in which he slept is not very well-ventilated. Wilson’s writings and diary are stored on microfiche in the Pennsylvania State Library for any who care to find out more about the famous recluse.
The other story of note attached to Indian Echo Caverns takes place a century later. In 1919 three local teenage boys were exploring the caverns. One decided to climb a rock formation in the Rainbow Room and while seeking a firm grip stuck his hand into a small tunnel in the rock only to find that someone had been there before him. He discovered a small wooden box which when opened was found to contain 19 coins from as far back as the reign of Constantine in the Roman Empire as well as several gems. Years later, the box was returned to the present owner of Indian Echo Caverns, Edward Swartz and it is currently on display in the gift shop.
Wilson Cavern being the last stop on the tour, we trudged back to the light and up those 71 stairs (which is no joke when you’re lugging 30 pounds of toddler). While my daughter found the puddles on the trail in the caverns to be the most fun, I enjoyed sharing a part of my past with her. Doubtless she won’t remember our trip to Indian Echo Caverns, but I will. And I am glad that those memories of cheap, feathered tomahawks I’ve held from my own youth have now been replaced with images of silent, frozen splendor and a wonder for nature’s endless variety.
|
147x50.gif)