Grand Canyon Caverns - Features

Features

The Grand Canyon Caverns is the largest dry caverns in the United States and maybe the largest dry cavern system on earth as they are still being explored and documented by both amateur and professional spelunkers, archaeologists, geologists and other varieties of scientists. At a constant 57 degrees with only a 2 percent humidity year round the Caverns are the ideal preservatory. The caverns are featured in a 2011 documentary produced by PassmoreLab of San Diego, California, entitled The Inner Earth, in which the caverns will be featured with other amazing caves from Belize, Hawaii, and Iceland.

Spelunkers and tourists alike can take a 45-minute, guided, walking tour of the Caverns beginning with a 21-story, or 210-foot (64 m) descent from the earth's surface in a large elevator, or a shorter 25-minute wheelchair accessible tour. The more hardcore and professional spelunkers can explore on their own, with the proper permission of course, areas that are never seen by the ordinary tours.

The first cavern that one enters after their descent by elevator is the Chapel of the Ages cavern room which is so large it could hold up to two football fields. There have been numerous weddings performed in this room throughout the years. The most popular guided walking tour is about 3/4 of a mile long through winding, natural tunnels where guests will see helecite crystals, a rather rare form of selenite, red-wall limestone, 'teacup handles', 'winter crystals' and more, including the large cache of cold war era rations placed there in the 1960s.

While the Caverns are the most popular natural feature of this vast recreational area in northern Arizona, next to the Grand Canyon, there are plenty of accommodations on site that enable tourists and scientists alike to spend time here. A hotel, The Grand Canyon Caverns Inn, a RV park and campgrounds, restaurant, convenience store, and a 5,100-foot (1,600 m) runway, all located along the longest remaining, contiguous stretch of historic Route 66 enable visitors to arrive by plane or vehicle and stay to explore, both underground and above ground features, as long as desired. In fact, the Caverns area has such educational value that the Elderhostel organization offers several travel adventures to the resort complete with transportation, meals, overnight lodging, and of course, educational classes in the inn's meeting and banquet rooms along with walking classes touring the caverns and the surface areas to learn about geology, biology, history and many other topics of interest.

For those hikers headed to the Native American resort village of Supai, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon Caverns Inn is the closest lodging and meal establishment on top of the Canyon with both highway and runway access where hikers prepare for their 5-mile (8.0 km) descent into the Canyon, and return after their ascent from the village for food and rest prior to heading back from whence they came, usually Phoenix or Las Vegas.