CORONADO CAVE EXPLORING

Coronado Cave

You Don't Have to Be a Serious Spelunker to Wander This Cavern When we switched off our flashlights, and Coronado Cave went black, I froze. I'm not talking about a momentary wave of anxiety, or the feeling of butterflies dancing in my small intestine. I mean I felt a stiffening sensation begin in my feet, race up my spine, and settle in my cowlick. Ahead of me was 550 feet of darkness. I asked myself: Do I want to walk into that void populated by dust, albino crickets, and - at least in my imagination vicious gargoyles? No, of course not. I wanted to spin on my heels and run back to the light beaming through the cave's mouth. I wanted out of there, and pronto. But I couldn't move. It would've taken a backhoe to budge me off that spot. The last thing I heard before paralysis set in was one of my guides, Ranger Barbara Alberti of the Coronado National Memorial, saying that she always stops at this point, about 50 feet from the entrance, and kills her flashlight to let her eyes acclimate to the darkness. "Let's turn our lights back on," I said. "It takes a while," Barbara said, "but you'll be surprised how well you'll be able to see." "I need light. I'm feeling a little . . . c-cclaustrophobic." "But once your eyes adjust. . . ." "I can't do this. I gotta get outta here." You have no idea how difficult it was to utter those words. Understand something:

Coronado Cave

Coronado isn't a crawl-on-your-belly cave. It isn't even a crawl-on-your-hands-andknees cave. It's about 600 feet long and consists of two rooms, each about 70 feet wide. The ceilings are 20 feet high in most places.

Think of Costco during a power outage. The only difference is there are no forklifts to trip over and no 20-pound drums of peanut butter to lug around.

Fact is, Coronado Cave is such an easy experience that it's billed as great for the whole family. Ten year olds waltz through with no problem. Desk jockeys with beer bellies go front to back with a shrug. Women have been known to take their grandchildren inside and leave without a strand of hair out of place.

But me, a 43-year-old semiexperienced outdoorsman, someone who makes a living getting into and out of odd circumstances and writing about them, a veteran of some of Arizona's remotest locales, I was standing within spitting distance of sunlight with my underwear in a bunch. And I couldn't even blink. Barbara stood beside me, looking crisp and professional in her uniform, trying to figure out if her day's work was going to include hauling a basket case to the nervous hospital.

"You know," she said, just as nice as could be, "if someone is going to get claustrophobia, it's when they get to the rocks around the opening. I've never had anyone actually get all the way inside and have this happen."

Funny thing was, it was all my idea. I've lived in Arizona for 21 years, but had never visited the cave and decided it was time. The cave's part of the Coronado National Memorial, a 4,700-acre site tucked against the Mexican border at the southern end of the Huachuca Mountains.

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado is believed to have crossed through this land in 1540 on his way up from Mexico into what is now the United States. He was searching for Cibola, the fabled "Seven Cities of Gold."

Despite that history, and the silent beauty of Montezuma Canyon, the memorial remains something of a secret. When I talked to Barbara on the phone a few days before visiting, she said the site draws a modest 95,000 visitors a year, and only 4,500 of those make the three-quarter-mile hike from the visitors center to the cave.

"We're not real well-known and not real big," she said. "There's no sign out on Interstate 10, and guidebooks usually don't mention us. If you're coming down on a Tuesday, you might have the place to yourself."

We began the hike up from the visitors center just after noon on an overcast day with just three cars in the parking lot. A Cooper's hawk roamed the sky, and turkey vultures sat on the limbs of the big sycamores bordering the rocky trail. Alongthe way, Barbara pointed to stalks of agave cactuses that had been nibbled by deer and talked about the history of the cave.

Legend has it that Geronimo used it as a hideout while on the run from the Army. At various times, it has been called Geronimo's Cave and Montezuma's Treasure Vault, for the fortune in gold said to have been stashed there, but, of course, never found.

One of the earliest published references to the cave was in the Tombstone Epitaph, June 12, 1880. The newspaper described what appeared to be an Indian council circle in the first room, and said that 200 to 300 arrowheads had been collected there. "In the second [room], rising from the floor, are numerous stalagmites, while beautiful stalactites hang from the ceiling in almost countless numbers," the Epitaph reported. They are no longer so plentiful. Until the 1930s, local residents routinely broke off pieces of the formations as souvenirs. But the cave is living, meaning that water still drips to form stalagmites and stalactites.

"That makes this an ideal teaching cave," Barbara explained as we hiked toward the entrance. "We can talk about the vandalism that has occurred and how caves are formed. We can also take larger school groups there, and that wouldn't be appropriate at other caves."

When we passed some manzanita bushes, the third member of our party, volunteer guide Will Sergent, told of a group of fourth-graders he escorted to the cave two weeks earlier. The manzanita berries weren't ripe yet, and he made sure to tell the kids not to eat them.

"I must've said five times, 'Don't eat the manzanita berries,'" recalled Sergent, a retired Navy man. "A few days later, the kids sent a letter saying how much they loved the cave, and 'Boy, those manzanita berries sure tasted great.'"

We laughed about that as we trudged up the steep incline. The hike to the cave may be less than a mile, but the elevation rises 500 feet over that span to 5,700 feet. Barbara said visitors from lower elevations often struggle on the last leg.

"As we're nearing the cave, they usually say, 'This is the longest three-quarters of a mile I've ever hiked,'" she said.

"Wimps," I mumbled under my breath. The first sign of trouble came as I crawled over the blocklike rocks into the cave's entrance and realized I'd left my glasses in the car. Prescription sunglasses aren't a lot of help in a cave. I kept my mouth shut about this. Why embarrass myself? I thought. But going without glasses contributed to my disorientation, which mounted as I moved deeper into the darkness. At 15 feet, I got jelly legs. At 30 feet, my pulse quickened. A moment later, I tried to speak, and it came out like Carol Channing singing "Hello Dolly." That's when I lapsed into a state of total mummification. The more Barbara talked about claustrophobia, the worse I felt. "I... I can't do this," I stammered. "Maybe I can come back another day." But to my surprise, and great relief, the discomfort eased after about 20 minutes. Barbara suggested that we enter the narrow hallway connecting the two rooms, and I cautiously agreed. "Just don't say claustrophobia," I said. "We'll talk about baseball." We walked. Slowly. The cave walls looked like a bodybuilder's back, layered with standing veins and crevices formed by shifts In the earth. Calcite formations, created by thousands of years of dripping water, also layered the rocks in the shape of fistfuls of shaving cream. The ceiling angled in spots, high enough at first to elude the end of my flashlight beam, then it dropped lower and lower, especially where side tunnels corkscrewed off into the blackness. It reminded me of other enclosed spaces. Coffins, for example. Dust covered everything, especially the cave's rock floor, so of course I let my mind take off with Biblical ruminations about going from dust to dust with the small matter of my life in between. My short life. "Boy, the Red Sox can't buy a win," shrieked Carol Channing. Barbara couldn't contain herself any longer. When I said something about wanting to take notes, she eyed the vise-like grip I kept on my two flashlights and cracked, "I don't think you're going to be letting go of those things anytime soon." Along the pinching hallway, she pointed out a hunk of rock in the shape of a dinosaur's head. Its teeth and eyes had been dabbed in fluorescent paint by some unknown vandal, giving them a silvery glow in our flashlights. But I had trouble finding the outline of the beast and leaned closer. "Wish I had my glasses." "Here," Barbara said. "Just for the heck of it, see if these help." She pulled off her own glasses and handed them to me. The effect was miraculous. Our prescriptions must've matched exactly. Not only could I see the dinosaur's head, but I could breathe again, and my fear vanished. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's go," I said. "Let's see the rest of the cave." Barbara and Will looked at one another as though they'd encountered an alien, and in a way they had. "Well, that's what park rangers are for," said Barbara. "To lend their glasses to people." Of course, now I was wearing women's glasses, and my guide couldn't see. Who said this had to be normal? Besides, Barbara's knowledge of the cave was so complete, it was hardly an impairment for her at all. For the next hour, I had full use of my

Coronado Cave

(LEFT) The scalloped sides of a now dry streambed attest to the powerful flow of water that originally helped shape the cave. (RIGHT) Framed by two massive flowstone columns, Sergent and Banks study crystalline formations on the cave's ceiling.

limbs, and I actually enjoyed myself. I inspected graffiti dating to 1873, checked the ceiling for snoozing bats, and listened to Barbara describe the pools that form at the cave's back wall after the summer rainy season.

"The water sparkles in the light as it runs down into the little travertine pools, and you can hear it trickling," she said. "It's really pretty."

We stood at the top of a steep rise leading to the exit tunnel Geronimo supposedly used to give soldiers the slip. It's nothing but a man-size hole with others like it running along the rock at the back and side. Some stunning cave coral decorates this area. Barbara calls it chocolate-covered cauliflower, a perfect description. As we stood inspecting this cave vegetable, Will told of the coatimundi that makes one of the depressions its home.

"Sometime I hear him scurrying away when I come around," he said. "Of course, who knows, the noises could be an echo."

"Yeah, your mind can really play tricks on you in here," Barbara said to me.

Then she realized who she was talking to, and we cracked up.

At day's end, I drove three miles beyond the visitors center up to Montezuma Pass, one of Arizona's most breathtaking overlooks. The view takes in hundreds of miles of the San Pedro Valley and the gold and green desert grasslands of the San Rafael Valley.

It gave me some perspective on the magnitude of what Coronado endured, and how thrilling his journey must've been. For a quick moment, I wondered what it would have been like to ride with him. But reality intervened, and I realized I wouldn't have lasted a week with Coronado. Maybe 10 days if he loaned me his glasses.

Tucson-based Leo W. Banks has returned to Coronado Cave since writing this story, with his glasses. While Phoenix-based David Elms Jr. enjoys the challenge of photographing Arizona's subterranean landscapes, he prefers capturing images of the state's scenic beauty above ground.

WHEN YOU GO

To reach Coronado Cave, drive 16 miles south of Sierra Vista on State Route 92, and turn right onto Coronado Memorial Highway, which joins East Montezuma Canyon Road. From the turnoff on State 92, it is another six miles to the Coronado National Memorial. The visitors center is open daily from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. except Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Visitors can tour the cave without a guide but must sign in. Entrance to the cave is by free permit only. Take plenty of water, two flashlights per person, and wear sturdy shoes. The temperature inside the cave remains steady at about 70° F. year-round.

Montezuma Pass is three miles above the visitors center. The last two-mile section of the road there is dirt, and it includes tight curves. Elevation at the pass is 6,575 feet. From there visitors can hike another three-quarters of a mile to Coronado Peak, at 6,864 feet. Quotations from the journals of Coronado's captains are posted at scenic overlooks along this trail. For more information, contact Coronado National Memorial, 4101 E. Montezuma Canyon Road, Hereford, AZ 85615; (520) 366-5515.