Indiana Caves

stocknup said:

I used to go almost every weekend back in the early `80's ........I doubt you can even access these any longer ?
Started out at Salamander Cave ( Good beginner cave ) -
also went many times to Buckners ( I think we could have made it without light we went so often )
- Waynes Lost Cave -
Sullivan Cave ( I think I remember someone said it was 10 miles long ?? ) We camped out all night to tried to make it to the end. Never saw the end .
The best to me was Reeves Cave ( a lot of water to wade through right at the beginning ) Nice formations and not trashed out like most .

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When I started caving in 1983 you could just go to all of those caves. Now all of them require special permission. Salamander and Reeves are especially restricted.

I’ve averaged a trip a week in Buckner since I started, and have logged over 2000 trips in just that cave. When I teach novices after they’ve done about a dozen trips I have them do the crawlway with their lights off.

shibumiseeker said:

When I started caving in 1983 you could just go to all of those caves. Now all of them require special permission. Salamander and Reeves are especially restricted.

I’ve averaged a trip a week in Buckner since I started, and have logged over 2000 trips in just that cave. When I teach novices after they’ve done about a dozen trips I have them do the crawlway with their lights off.

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I`m sure the lack of respect was the reasoning for the restrictions . Hope they got to Reeves before it got too bad ?
That`s what made that one so cool back in the day . Hardly any "Signatures" , no trash and almost all the formations were in place ( no one broke them off for souvenirs ) .

stocknup said:

I used to go almost every weekend back in the early `80's ........I doubt you can even access these any longer ?
Started out at Salamander Cave ( Good beginner cave ) -
also went many times to Buckners ( I think we could have made it without light we went so often )
- Waynes Lost Cave -
Sullivan Cave ( I think I remember someone said it was 10 miles long ?? ) We camped out all night to tried to make it to the end. Never saw the end .
The best to me was Reeves Cave ( a lot of water to wade through right at the beginning ) Nice formations and not trashed out like most .

Click to expand...

Salamander is still a good beginner cave, but you have to get permission of the landowner (in California), the highway department (not too hard to get) and IDNR (good luck). And only in the summer.
You'll never get me into Wayne's again - the Torpedo Tubes and long crawl are for the young and in shape.
Still go to Sullivan's with some regularity (with permission, of course).
I hear good things about Peacher's (not trashed) but the "official" guide our scout troop used is likely not with us any more.

We used to do it in the 1980’s also. It was cool but I never got the big urge to do it a lot. Many a friend group who went all the time.

i will admit one of my favorite camping spots had a hole into a cave room top very close by. In the summertime we would bring a hvac tube with a screen on one end and run it into the tents for camping AC from the cave.

BlueSprings is a pretty short tour. If you are driving any distance you will likely want to find other things to do. Visit Spring Mill State Park.. Donaldson cave is not large, but kinda neat to visit.
For the size, length of the tours and variety of formations I like Marengo.
And it's not all "that" far from Blue Springs.
They now have an indoor black light puttputt.

Indiana Caverns and Squire Boone are near one another.
Indiana Caverns has some bear and javalina(?) bones and they have a short boat ride (looks like man made dam to create the "lake")
Indiana Caverns also has an escape room, and zipline type coaster thing.

Parts of Squire Boone had been shut down a few years ago, but I think it's all opened up now? The spiral stair is a lot of steps, and kinda rusty, but felt OK when I was there last.

They have cards you can get punched when you take the tours and you can get a t-shirt if you do them all i a year. : )

I believe that Wyandott might be open in the summers, after having been closed down due to the white-nose bat thing. When I looked late last summer it said to call O'bannonn woods state park to find out about tours. We did Wyandott years ago and I seem to remember that I liked it quite a bit.
Hope that helps..

edit to add: zipline and indoor puttputt

I agree with the Blue spring Caverns and the southern cave systems. There are actually a lot more than I thought in Indiana!

Not a natural cave - but look up MegaCavern in Louisville. There's a ton of stuff to do there.

Not in Indiana of course, but there've been a few mentions of Mammoth Cave.

That area is an EASY drive and well worth it. Plus there are SEVERAL commercial caves in that area that all offer walking tours - and this is in addition to what you can experience at Mammoth.

My family and I have done some of Mammoth, Diamond Caverns (which is actually on Mammoth Cave Parkway...), Onyx Cave (Which is at Kentucky Down Under - a place a 7 year old would love), and Horse Cave which is literally in/under Horse Cave, Ky.

And as BBI said, Dinosaur World. Kids liked that, too.

South edge of Bowling Green KY is Lost River Cave - also apparently with boat tours. Not been there, but we did take the kids to the Historic RailPark & Train Museum on the north side of BG. Kids did like that.

Plus there's the Corvette Museum on the north side of BG...conveniently and inconveniently constructed right on top of a cave.

If y'all camp - there are tons of places/parks to camp. We stayed at the Quality Inn I think. Been several years - I've forgotten.

I think we are going with Marengo to start with some of our caving adventures. I appreciate all of the leads and tips. Lots of cool places to seek out in the future but I think he will love the Marengo site. Lets get rid of this cold weather and bring on some sun!

I've been to Wyandotte, Marengo, Squire Boone, Beck's Mill. Most memorable of those was Beck's Mill. Varied formations, everything from bone dry & dusty to raging rapids all in one cave. My legs gave out halfway through. Pretty sure it's not open to the general public.

Indiana Caverns is the latest and greatest of the commercial caves. I've not yet been.

I'm gonna throw this out there just because I never even heard of until I was 50 years old and this is pretty cool.

Louisville Kentucky. There is a huge limestone mine UNDERNEATH Louisville. Yeah, so what. Right? If you've never been in one, this is an easy, clean, fun, awesome way to learn some stuff about underground limestone mines. This history of it, how, why, when and after it the mine is over, then what do they do with them. PERFECT opportunity for kids of any age, 5 - 50 years of age.

Now you are nodding off, uh huh uh huh... Inside this mine there is a year round bicycle stuff, A zip line tour of the mine sliding down zip lines traveling around the mine. There is still acual mine activity going on in other parts of mine. Stores and places use parts of the mine for warehouses and storage of everything you see above ground in the city. There are little tour carts to drive you all around and tell you all about it. In December there is a driving tour you drive your car around to see lit up decorations it is call Lights Under Louisville.

Then you have everything else a big city has above ground you may want to do. I highly recommend the little tour wagons as the least expensive way to learn what all there is to off, at least LOOK at it all and then decide if you want to do more than that.

Not exactly "caving" but I thought it was cool and everyone I've talked in to it liked once they tried it.

Morengo and Indiana Caverns were on our spring break to do list. We did both trails at Morengo. They had a very nice souvenir shop and the Pizza smelled good but we didn’t have any. Learned some cool facts about the formation of the cave and then Jr. had fun outside with the Maze and climbing tower. The tours were well organized and the young guides did great at keeping it fun for everyone.

Morengo:




Indiana Caverns:

The Caverns had a 10 video to watch before entering the cave, explaining the millions of years formation and history surrounding the areas ice age transformation. Half of the tour was in a float boat through the dark river tunnel. Good times for easy cave exploration.