Our camping trip for December, 2023 was a car campout at Kartchner Caverns State Park. The Big Room cave tour was amazing!!! We took a short hike over to the Discovery Center to meet with our state park tour guide, learned some interesting facts about how the caves were discovered, and then boarded a tram to the cave entrance. We had to walk through two air-locked doors and then were sprayed with mist at the entrance which are all precautions to help preserve the cave environment.
The cave is massive and in the Big Room we were able to see several rare or unique formations, including the first-ever discovery of “cave turnips”. We also found examples of soda straw formations, cave bacon flowstone, and “fried egg” stalagmites. I’m getting hungry now! Once we finished with our tours we had time to work on rank advancement activities, free time to play, and some of the scouts attended a first aid merit badge class.
Sunday we made breakfast in our patrols and and then headed out for a 4 plus mile Guindani Loop Trail hike. The trail started out low and we navigated through a creek bed and then climbed up a steep incline to a summit where there was an incredible views of the area. We ended with our troop’s first interfaith worship service. It was a great trip and one we hope to be able to do again in the future.
