Caverns of Sonora

The cave began as a 20-inch hole on the Mayfield family's ranch, found when a dog chased a raccoon into it. Locals explored about 500 feet in, to a fifty-foot pit, and called it Mayfield Cave. On Labor Day weekend 1955, four cavers crossed a narrow, sloping ledge high on one side of the pit and reached the passages beyond, and word of what they found spread through the caving world. Jack Burch, an Oklahoma caver, saw it in 1956 and found damage where there should have been none. He set out to develop it to stop the destruction, and the Caverns of Sonora opened to the public on July 16, 1960. It became a National Natural Landmark in 1966.

It is not a cave of great rooms. Its fame is the density of its decoration, and above all its helictites, formations that twist sideways and up instead of hanging straight, in shapes from soda straws to fish fins. The Handbook of Texas notes that most of the cave is still growing. Inside it is about 72 degrees with 98 percent humidity, so it feels warm, not cool.

The standard Crystal Palace tour takes groups of twelve or fewer about two miles through the cave and 155 feet down, with about 360 stairs, in roughly an hour and 45 minutes. Formations hang close over the trail, so no bags, food or drink go inside, only cameras. There are also a photography tour and a four-hour off-trail Discovery Challenge with a rappel into the Devil's Pit.