Family Firsts
Minhan and I often compare childhoods. Whose was better? In what way? Things like that. She claims to have had a better family unit: most of her extended family was around and they frequently had gatherings. I claim to have better childhood experiences: we would often travel around the country and abroad, and I spent a lot of time in nature. Since this blog post is about nature and photography, I claim to have the better childhood. Plus, she’s not able to edit this post!
One thing I remember about my childhood is exploring caves. I was a young kid and had braces. One trip, my mom and I were in a cave and our guide turned off the lights so that we could experience complete darkness. I saw an opportunity to freak some people out and smiled with my glow-in-the-dark bands. It might have slightly ruined the mood, but I didn’t do it for long and I had my moment.
Minhan has never been inside a cave, and on previous trips to Sequoia National Park we tried to book a tour inside Crystal Cave. It’s a very popular tour that is almost always filled, but we managed to snag three spots during the summer, as our little sister Minhsang came along. We didn’t know it at the time, but we should have reserved another spot for Baby M! First cave tour for mommy, auntie, and baby.
Cave Photography
I became acutely aware of how unprepared I was to take photos inside the cave when we were handed flashlights. In hindsight, I should have prepared better for low-light shots, but I did the best I could with the lens I brought in (we weren’t allowed any bags inside). I brought my Olympus M.Zuiko ED Zoom 12‑40mm F/2.8 Pro lens, which actually did pretty well. A wider aperture lens is preferable for these low-light environments to let more light hit the sensor. To counter the longer shutter speeds necessary to shoot in here, I raised the ISO to 4000 and kept my aperture as wide open as possible. Luckily, there were plenty of people who were exploring the cave without cameras, so they provided the light for me with their flashlights!
In this first image, we were at the beginning of the tour. There was water flowing out of the cave, and I thought this made for a unique composition. There was sand and rock in the stream, and rock shelves above, which add a bit of depth to the photo. I love the blue and green hues in this shot.
The “Crystal” in Crystal Cave
Crystal Cave is named as such because there are portions inside the cave that have a shimmering surface due to calcite, a common soluble mineral, composing the marble surface. The formation of the marble happened through intense geologic heat and pressure on limestone as the mountains were made millions of years ago. Sand deposits and other fine materials were mixed with the limy ooze. After this mixture solidified, the resulting sandstones metamorphosed to the crystalline structures present today.
It was a little hard to get a good photograph of the shimmering rock, and the following image does not do it justice. However, this photo is one of the better ones that I took, and I like how the stalactites blend in with the darkness of the cave above.
Cave Formations
Stalactites are the structures you see hanging from the ceiling of caves, and is composed mainly of calcium salts. They are formed as water drips from the ceiling of the cave. That water brings some minerals with it, which solidifies over many years. That’s why the stalactites have a sort of “icicle” shape to them.
On our way to “The Organ Room”, we came across the following structure that looked like an alien landscape. The opening you see is probably no more than a foot tall, and water filled the bottom. What intrigued me about this was everything you can see in the photo: tiny stalactites and stalagmites, columns, water, and rimstone.
I’ve already discussed stalactite formation, and stalagmite formation is pretty similar. Stalagmites form when the water droplets fall from the stalactites and hit the cave floor. Because the water droplets carry some calcium salt, when the water evaporates, the salt remains and can begin to pile upwards. Eventually, the calcium salt buildup from the growing stalagmite meets the descending stalactite, and they meet to form a column. You can see an example of this on the right of the photograph.
Rimstones are fascinating structures, and you can see some below the water surface. They are mineral deposits from by water that flows over the rim of a pool. If you do a Google search for rimstones, you can see all sorts of different shapes!
The Organ Room
One look at the following image and hopefully you can see why this is called The Organ Room. The sheer number of cave formations is overwhelming! And I love how you can see little baby stalactites forming on the ceiling of the cave.
In this room, much like what I did when I was a little kid, our guide turned off the lights and had us “go meta” for a little while. We thought about the cave and tried comprehending the time it took for this cave to form. We also thought about what it would be like to navigate the cave without electricity, and how bats can navigate in complete darkness. The Organ Room itself isn’t even that far into the cave; although there are over 3mi of passage, that’s just the very entrance to the cave. Deeper portions house the many creatures that reside there.
Shot at f/2.8, 12mm, ISO 4000, 1/10sec
Cascade Falls
Touring the caves was a truly unforgettable experience, and I’m grateful for having the opportunity to share this with my family.
On our way back to the parking lot, we passed Cascade Falls, which still had some runoff. I actually like this relatively low level of runoff, as you can see the contours of the landscape and still get that silkiness of the water with longer exposures. Since it was bright outside, I attached a neutral density (ND) x8 filter, set up my tripod, and exposed to the right (there will be a future blog post on this technique!). Afterwards, I reduced the exposure and brought out the shadows in Lightroom to bring out the detail in the rock. Here is the final image:
We took the Discovery Tour of Crystal Cave. If any of you have taken the other tours, especially the Wild Cave Tour, I’d love to hear about your experiences!
A Bit of History of Crystal Cave
Although there are over 200 discovered caves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Crystal Cave is the only cave developed for public use. It has over 2,000ft of passages, and three additional cave entrances were discovered in the early 1990s. The cave is situated in a slab of marble 200ft thick. Crystal Cave has suffered vandalism, including broken stalactites, and is currently accessible only by guided tours.
In 1918, two National Parks Service employees, C. M. Webster and A. L. Medley, discovered Crystal Cave. They were on a fishing trip along Cascade Creek. Shortly after, the park Superintendent, Walter Fry, named the cave and immediately took steps to preserve it. He had a log barricade built at the entrance until additional resources were available to further develop the area. It wasn’t until 1940 that Crystal Cave was opened to the public only during the summer months.
Although the origins of Crystal Cave are still a mystery, scientists have theories on its formation. Evidence suggests a stream that ran opposite to Cascade Creek drains a cave that used to be connected to Crystal Cave. Major portions of this larger network of caves were dissolved before the present-day Cascade Creek fell to current levels and bisected the cave. Afterwards, clay, sand, and gravel filled in the cave galleries and were washed away, although some of the chambers in Crystal Cave still retain a reddish clay in the walls. Some of the mineral deposits in the upper portions of Crystal Cave are not consistent with those found in Cascade Creek, further suggesting that another creek filled the cave in the past.
Whatever the actual origins of Crystal Cave are, it is beautiful and offers visitors a rare opportunity to have a guided exploration of a cave inside Sequoia National Park!
As usual, comments, conversations, feedback, and messages are always welcome!
Love your story.. I remember ‘your moment’ in that cave. We were in our road trip in Natural Bridge Caverns inTexas. Did you remember the white sand with your sister?
Yes I do!