Grand Canyon Caverns

BY: Kimberly Hosey

MUMMIES, bomb shelters, BRAINS and subterranean SNOWBALLS

210 feet underground, imaginations run amok at Grand Canyon Caverns In 1927 Walter Peck, a woodcutter for the Santa Fe Railroad on his way to a poker game, stumbled over a giant funnel-shaped hole, widened by heavy rain, in a sparsely vegetated expanse in northwest Arizona. Sensing there was something special about this cleft in the earth, Walter returned the following morning after the poker game, with a couple of buddies, ropes and lanterns.

Perhaps Walter was a persuasive friend. Maybe he was owed a poker debt. Maybe he just engaged in the 1920s version of double-dog daring. But the end result was the same: A cowboy found a rope around his waist as Walter and company lowered him into a formerly unknown system of caverns.

Armed only with the glow from a coal-oil lantern, the slightly built cowhand was let down 150 feet until he hollered up that his feet had hit ground. He glimpsed human remains and a saddle. But what really caught his eye were sparkles from the rocks. He collected samples, surfaced and told Walter of the twinkle as his lantern light shone on diamonds and veins of what must be gold. Somewhere between the account and Walter's hopes, even silver figured in.

Walter promptly requested an assay, but couldn't contain himself and bought the land before the report came in. Turns out, the poor guy could be the poster child for buyer's remorse. The "diamonds" were selenite crystals-glassy, crystallized gypsum rocks, easily scratched with a fingernail. The veins of "gold," their color distorted by lantern light, turned out to be bands of lime deposits colored by rusty iron oxide. There was no silver. The most valuable mineral in the caverns was a poor grade of tin. His bejeweled vault was a big, dry hole.

Some 80 years later, on a brisk October morning, my 4-year-old son and I wait to see Walter's treasure trove. Although it never yielded the goldsilver-diamond combo he envisioned, it burgeoned into an attraction off Historic Route 66.

Outside the Grand Canyon Caverns Restaurant, my son spies chickens darting about next door. He asks me what they're eating. "Grains," I say, taking his hand to embark on our 45-minute tour. We make our way to the elevator to the caverns, carrying our purchases from the curio shop-admission tokens, poker chips in honor of old Walter and a toy miner's helmet. Suddenly my son's hand clutches mine in a death-grip.

"What's wrong?" I ask. "The tour's going to be fun." "I know," he replies, clearly contemplating some-thing troubling. “But why do those chickens eat brains?” I decide maybe this is a place for misunderstandings. Luckily, troubling chicken-feed ideas are easily and quickly set right. Walter decided if he couldn't mine treasure from the ground, he'd mine it from pockets. So for 25 cents a pop, he handed folks a lantern, and he and his brother, Miles, lowered them much like the first visitor, descending on a rope winch into the caverns. Today's tour guides, who walk guests through lit walkways and whose tales are a little less tall than old Walter's, refer to those days as the time of “dope on a rope” tours. Our jovial tour guide, Jerry Keeler, makes easy conversation as the elevator descends 210 feet-21 stories-into the largest dry cavern in the United States. Grand Canyon Caverns doesn't put on an impressive façade above ground. But tucked beneath saffron grasses is one of the remaining attractions of a once-great swath of Americana. John Steinbeck, in The Grapes of Wrath, wrote, “66 is the path of a people in flight, refugees from dust and shrinking ownership, from the desert's slow northward invasion, from the twisting winds that howl 66 is the mother road, the road of flight.” Historic Route 66 no longer serves as a true mother road. And comfortably out of the dustbowl era, my son and I love the desert-howling winds included. But I felt a tinge of Steinbeckian escapism as I left Interstate 40, the route whose construction spelled the end of America's romance with 66, to sample a roadside attraction and work on slowing down. So it is with a deliberate attitude of leisurely veneration that I follow Keeler, already reciting from his repertoire of cavernthemed puns (we start our tour with “rock solid” information), into the Grand Canyon Caverns beneath the Route 66 roadside. One of the early draws for tourists and the press alike, Keeler says, was the human remains. Before you could say “yellow journalism,” papers blared headlines about preserved Stone Age men, found in their ancient den in Arizona's high desert. The saddle found with the “cavemen” was conveniently forgotten. Soon, local Hualapai Indians spoke up to explain that in 1917, two of their tribe had died of influenza while out gathering wood. Unable to bury them in the thenfrozen ground, survivors in the party lowered their tribesmen into a hole in an area considered sacred, with a saddle to assist in their final ride across the Great Divide. But there's plenty of truth to fascinate in

The only bacteria are what we've brought along, Keeler says. 'This may be the cleanest air you'll ever breathe.'

these caverns, born in a geologic era when there was just one continent and none of the animals we know today. Using water in one hand and earthquakes in the other, Nature began to sculpt the subterranean chasm of interconnected vaults, starting 345 million years ago. The buried limestone layers were cracked by earthquakes and uplift. Underground rivers “dug” chambers beneath the ground. In later, drier times, water percolated through limestone and decked the underground halls with flowstone, stalactites, stalagmites, helictites and other cave oddities. These wonders went largely unseen until dope-on-a-rope days eventually gave way to a series of ladders descending to a wooden bridge, constructed during the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Bridge tours cost 50 cents and you had to bring your own light, but visitors could explore the caverns, albeit at an energy cost akin to walking down and back up the stairs of a 15-story building. Finally in the 1960s, an elevator shaft was blasted, taking two years and 90 cases of dynamite. A modern elevator was installed, which we now exit into the caverns' first huge room, the Chapel of Ages. The room has served as an actual chapel a handful of times, the first being to join in matrimony Kim Heal, a curio-shop worker, and Bill Moulis. Heal's veil, which affixed to the wall when she threw it in 1977, still hangs today. It's preserved by the constant cool, dry, bacteria-free environment. The caverns are a continuous 56 degrees year-round, with humidity steady at 6 percent. Bacteria don't survive longer than 72 hours. “The only bacteria are what we've brought along,” Keeler says. “This may be the cleanest air you'll ever breathe.” The Chapel of Ages measures 130 yards long, big enough to accommodate a football field. The other huge room, the Halls of Gold (which contain no actual gold, but show what cruel tricks lights can play on the iron oxide above), could enclose two fields in its 210 yards. The room's great acoustics bounce around an irresistable echo. Keeler witnessed it firsthand, he says, when Prescott's Tri-City College Prep High School performed a concert there, even inviting him to croon a few tunes.

GIANT GERTIE Once named Dinosaur Caverns after the discovery of prehistoric sloth remains, the Grand Canyon Caverns are home to "Gertie," a replica (right) of the giant sloth whose claw marks can still be seen on the cavern walls. Keeler and Hamilton meet Gertie's gargantuan figure face to face.

The halls hold another oddity: Stacked in the center are survival rations placed there during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, though you'd subsist on stale water, technicolor blobs Keeler identifies as "candy" and food that reportedly has "kept nicely" in the caverns for 45 years. He points out an additional peculiarity: The provisions can nurture 2,000 people for two weeks, but only three woefully small toilet paper rolls top off the stash.

Other rooms provide less-expansive vistas, but reward with views of fantasylike crystal formations-the cheap-but-pretty selenite that poor Walter took for diamonds. In the Crystal Room, an abundance of the deposits grow in whimsical shapes and glow like moonlight as they reflect strategically placed lights. Thick coats of "cave snow," slushy-looking crystals, adorn walls. The Snowball Palace showcases round, white deposits. Overhead, they're almost snow-white. Below, the "snowballs" have become cracked and yellowed, owing to an earlier era of tours when visitors were encouraged to touch the formations. Skin oils and disruptions from grab-happy guests were destroy-ing the formation. Oils traveled upward contaminating a swath of wall. Touching, we're reminded gently but not infrequently, is now prohibited.

"It took 6 million years to form," Keeler tells us. "And in 40 years we ruined much of it."

About halfway through the tour, Keeler informs us we're about to meet a mummy. My son, whose only experience with mummies comes when the word is directly preceeded by "The Curse of" in Halloween commercials, seems dubious. But this mummy isn't going anywhere. It's the cave-air-preserved remains of an unfortunate bobcat, found in 1950. He fell into the caverns a century earlier, breaking his hip. Another unfortunate resident, a giant ground sloth nicknamed "Gertie," was found where she died, trying to claw her way free through a small air hole. Extinct for at least 11,000 years, she was 15 feet long and weighed a ton. Keeler spotlights the place of Gertie's last hurrah, where several scratches crisscross the rock. Her remains were gathered by the University of Arizona in Tucson, but the caverns display a replica of her that now stands below the scratches, thick tongue out, on hind legs with a fat tail spread out for balance.

Near the end of the tour, Keeler tells us to wait while he shows us something. "You might want to hold on to him," he says, indicating my son. A few seconds later, it becomes clear why.

"Early visitors didn't have these easy and safe walkways with all these lights," he begins. With that, he flicks a switch, and every light in the chamber blinks off. Inky black velvet seems to tighten around our faces. This isn't merely dark; it's complete absence of light.

"Wiggle your fingers in front of your face," Keeler says. We do. Nothing. After 3 seconds or so, our eyes give up adjusting. We're told that after 45 minutes we'd begin to experience vertigo and "become totally disoriented and helpless." Fortunately, vertigo and helplessness-undoubtedly deemed unprofitable-are not included in the tour. After teasing us with a lit lantern, then dark, then a match, then dark again, Keeler flips the lights back on.

My son rejoices in the caverns as they're once again illuminated, nated, and talks conspiratorially with Keeler as the guide points out kid-friendly markings in the cave: a giant handprint, the "Giant's Keyhole," a cleft rock that he terms the "Giant's Butt." I hear about the latter for a few hours on the ride home.

I decide my son's got the right idea, as Keeler turns to me and discusses non-butt-themed cave topics. In the Mystery Room an airshaft leads to the Grand Canyon. It was discovered in 1958 when red smoke pumped into a caverns hole drifted out of the Canyon near Havasu Falls-40 miles away a few weeks later. Lower levels of the cavern have been detected by seismic testing, descending as deep as 1,500 feet, including an underground lake. Keeler continues until we exit the elevator, clearly far from running out of material. Yep, I'll be back. No double-dog daring required. All

► when you go

Getting There: From Flagstaff, take Interstate 40 west toward Seligman. Take Exit 123 and turn right (northwest) onto Historic Route 66. Take Route 66 for about 25 miles to Grand Canyon Caverns.

Hours: Tours run daily except Christmas Day. Hours are 10 A.M. to 4 P.M., October through February, and 9 A.M. to 6 P.M., March through September.

Fees: Adults, $12.95; children, $9.95 for a 45-minute tour.

Information: (928) 422-3223; www.gccaverns.com.