On Friday morning, Donna and I rode the scooter down Caverns Road, aptly named as Secret Caverns and Howes Caverns are located along this road. This area of upstate New York, north of the Catskills Mountains, has a number of caves. Intrepid spelunkers can explore on their own, but beginners are best advised to tour one of the commercial caverns.

Howe Caverns is located on a large, well-developed property with a motel, gift shop and outdoor activities. It has an elevator that drops you 156 feet into the earth and the tour includes a boat ride on an underground river. It’s the second most visited attraction in New York State after Niagara Falls. In 1928, another cavern was found nearby.  Roger Mallery was working as an engineer developing Howes Cavern at the time. He purchased the newly found cavern up the road and called it Secret Caverns and began to develop it.

Secret Caverns is doesn’t have the huge manicured lawns and buildings found at Howes. It’s a little off-beat and funky. We opted to visit Secret Caverns. Donna had been to Howes before, but this was her first trip to Secret Caverns.

Secret Caverns is still owned by the Mallery family. Being privately owned, they set the rules and the rules are pretty loose. You take the tour with a guide. The guide tells corny jokes and also gives interesting facts. The guide also operates the lighting – turning lights on as you make your way down and turning lights off behind the group.

The first part of the descent into the earth is on steps either cut into the rock or cast from concrete. Water drips from the ceiling in many areas and the steps are mostly wet – along with the hand rail. You’re allowed to touch the walls and take all the pictures you want on this tour.

At the bottom of the 103 steps, the cavern floor becomes a narrow trail that slowly descends. The overhead clearance is low at times, I’m only 5′ 9″ and I had to duck to get through some sections. It’s also narrow enough in places to make your shoulders hunch. The temperature inside the cavern is a constant 50 degrees year ’round.

I won’t try to explain all of the pictures – hopefully they capture some of the feeling in the cave.

 

At the bottom of the cave, there’s a 100-foot waterfall. A subterranean stream empties into the cave. It’s warmer by the waterfall as the water hasn’t cooled as much as the water that seeps through the stone. It’s also very humid by the falls. The waterfall forms a shallow pool before it seeps into the Cobleskill and Schoharie creeks.

On the way back up, the guide stopped us about halfway and turned out the lights. It’s total darkness without artificial light. You can’t see your hand in front of your face! The last part of the tour was climbing up 103 wet steps to exit. It was fun and I recommend the tour.

Afterwards, Donna and I rode through the Howes Cavern property but didn’t stop. It was crowded – it’s a popular place. From there we rode to the Caverns Palace Restaurant and met up with Donna’s parents for lunch. The food was good and it was a great opportunity to visit with Duke and Lorraine before we pulled out of the area.

I spent most of the afternoon packing the trailer and stowing the windshield covers and tire covers. I also checked tire pressures. I drained the water from our fresh water tank. I had filled it at Addison Oaks in Michigan where the water is hard and had lots of iron along with other minerals. I had filtered the water, but the naturally soft water here is so much better. I refilled the tank with 100 gallons of fresh water.

Some people don’t travel with a full fresh water tank – they don’t want the weight. I prefer to have the tank full and the holding tanks empty. You never know what might come up on the road. If you’re stranded or stuck somewhere, plenty of fresh water, holding tank capacity and diesel fuel all come in handy.

I grilled wild salmon on the Traeger wood pellet fired grill for dinner along with sliced red onions wrapped in aluminum foil. Donna served the caramelized onions over the salmon. I’m still learning how to use this grill and unfortunately I overcooked the salmon.

On Saturday morning, after a brief thundershower, we pulled out of our site and hit the dump station. We made our way up to Amsterdam, New York and headed east on NY29. We drove through back country roads and found a Walmart that allows overnight parking in Queensbury.

Today we’ll make the 20-mile drive to the Lake George Escape campground and meet up with Donna’s sister Linda and her husband Tommy.