Co-founder of the National Speleological Society Bill Stephenson
once said of the stunning environment found in the Caverns of
Sonora that “…its beauty cannot be exaggerated, even by Texans”.
It’s a wry comment on our propensity to make everything seem
bigger in Texas but in this National Natural Landmark’s case,
the statement happens to be true. The Caverns of Sonora formed
approximately two million years ago when underground sulfuric
gases rose through faults in limestone. Water percolated into
the caverns over millennia creating some of the most beautiful,
known cave formations in the country. A two-mile interpretive
tour takes visitors 155 feet deep into the earth through narrow
passageways layered with stalagmites and stalactites of
innumerable shapes and sizes. The caverns remain seventy-one
degrees year-round and 95% of the formations are considered
active, meaning the processes that created the formations
continue to add to existing forms as well as creating new ones.
The Caverns of Sonora site, locat