Colossal Cave Mountain Park

I'm going to skip forward to the end of our Tucson trip because the girls and I spent Tuesday at the resort pool. Wednesday, Jerry was able to join us on our tour of Colossal Cave Mountain Park, http://www.colossalcave.com/. It was a bit longer drive than I expected, but I guess we were coming from Oro Valley, north of Tucson, and heading to Vail, which is south off of I10. Once you exit the freeway, the route is well-marked, but you still have another 15 minutes, at least, to go.

First things first...get there early or at least set aside a couple of hours to explore the park. Colossal Cave may be the main attraction for many people, but there is another entire section of the park, La Posta Quemada Ranch, that we missed because we ran out of time. My sister, who visited the park with her family last summer, also ran out of time, and although they were able to get down to the ranch, they couldn't spend much time there. That's a shame because La Posta Quemada Ranch has a lot to offer, including two museums, a butterfly garden, and riding stables. The park opens at 8 am during the summer and 9 am during the winter. It closes at 5 pm year round.

You'll also want to allow plenty of time for the kids to play the Discovery Tour game. The game map is handed out at the booth at the park's entrance and consists of 18 park highlights. At each of these highlights, the kids will find a punch station, i.e. a hole punch attached to a small, turquoise box. Once, they have punched each box on their game map, they can go to either of the park's gift shops or to the trail ride office to collect a prize. Even my 12 year old got caught up in the game.

I can't tell you much about La Posta Quemada Ranch or anything else at the park other than to say that camping is available on site and there are several picnic areas. You will pay a $5 fee per car to enter the park, so try to limit your party to one vehicle. (You will be charged $1 per person for parties over 6, but it might still save you money over multiple vehicles.)

The $5 park entrance fee does not include the cave tour. Depending on which tour you select, entrance to the actual cave is an additional fee. Regular cave tours are $11 for adults, $6 for children 5-12, and free for children 4 and under. If you go to http://www.colossalcave.com/, there is a Fun Pass 1/2 coupon that discounts a child's ticket to $3 with the purchase of an adult ticket. The only daytime tour option for parents with children under 12 is the standard tour (although children over 10 can take the Candlelight Tour); you have to be at least 12 to go on the Ladder Tour, 14 to go on the Intermediate Wild Cave Tour and 16 to go on the Advanced Wild Cave Tour.

Needless to say, we took the standard tour. If you're in Southern Arizona with kids and you are considering whether to go to Kartchner Caverns or Colossal Cave, I think Colossal is the better choice. First, it's a dry cave. Kartchner is a living, wet cave, which means you can't touch anything, at all. Period. They stop the tour if you do, and they mark the spot so crews can address the damaged area. In Colossal Cave, they encourage you to touch the cave in spots. Also, the tour groups are small, and tours depart approximately every 20 minutes. While there's never a long wait for the next tour, the small groups also allow for more interaction with your guide, something that's great for curious kids.

Don't get me wrong. Kartchner Caverns is wonderful. I love it, especially the light show at the end of Kartchner's general tour. Colossal Cave is just very different. At Kartchner, I was in awe; in Colossal, I found myself wondering what it would have been like to have been on one of those first tours in the 1920s or what it would have been like to have hidden out in this cave, like the outlaws used to do, and find my way through the narrow areas with a candle or old lantern. These are just two different experiences, in my opinion, and either one is an excellent adventure.