SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — The scars of record flooding and one of the biggest wildfires in Sequoia and Kings National Parks history remained on full display during a recent tour marking the reopening of an iconic landmark. Grove after grove of scorched up trees line the steep, half-mile hike down to the whimsical spiderweb gate that acts as the entrance to Crystal Cave.
Park officials recently welcomed dozens for a tour as the cave opened to the public for the first time in four years – since a parade of natural disasters had left it inaccessible.
Inside, visitors are transported hundreds of thousands of years back in time. Birdsongs suddenly give way to silence, punctuated only by the – drip, drip, drip – of the cave.
“This is a marble cathedral,” Tim Slover tells the crowd as he ushers them inside.
Slover is the Field Institute Manager with Sequoia Park Conservancy, a nonprofit that manages the cave.
Crystal Cave is over a million years old and stretches about three miles, he says. Only a small fraction of caves in the world are etched from marble.
Inside Crystal Cave, a small stream runs beside Slover as he leads the tour. Even today, the slightly acidic water continues to carve exquisite formations in the delicate rock.
“[The cave] forms in two stages, a primary stage and a secondary stage. In other words, the cavity – the hole – has to be made, and then it has to be decorated,” Slover tells the crowd.
Geologists call such decorations “speleothems.” They take many otherworldly forms, not just the familiar stalactites and stalagmites.
There’s also “cave bacon” – which are ribbed outcroppings that jut from the ceiling above. And there’s “flowstone.”
“That’s really fresh, pure calcite,” Slover explains. “It’s got that sugar cookie sparkle.”
Slover’s favorite feature inside the cave are the fairy pools. There, rock dissolves into shallow, terraced puddles, imparting them with a lavender glow.
“Even the most benign things are magical in this cave,” Slover said.
Sequoia National Park Superintendent Clay Jordan agrees.
On the recent tour, he beamed as he greeted visitors for the cave’s official reopening ceremony.
“I'm proud of the accomplishments we've made in repairing much of the quarter billion dollars of damage between fires and floods, but we still have a ways to go,” he said.
These disasters washed out roads and burned up the cave’s bespoke solar power system. He says 2023’s series of atmospheric rivers wreaked havoc on the park’s infrastructure.
“Some 4,800 hazard trees have been removed along the route so far,” he said.
Pani Schauffler lives near the park entrance, in the town of Three Rivers, and witnessed the destruction firsthand.
“During the fires, our home, we were under a mandatory evacuation for 27 days,” he said.
Fires are a part of the natural ecosystem in the Sierra Nevada. Giant Sequoia trees actually need fire to reproduce.
But scientists say the megablazes that have also seared the Sierra over the past decade are unlike any seen in nature here previously.
“It was scary, but the brave men and women saved our town and saved as many of the resources as they could in Sequoia and Kings Canyon,” he said. “They did an incredible job.”
But now, Schauffler says he’s excited to bring friends and family to Crystal Cave – now that it’s back open.
“It seems like things are getting back to normal, and it feels good,” he said.
