Arkansas’ Cosmic Cavern

During a recent visit to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, I was surprised to discover how many caverns were in the area. I have no idea why this shocked me. Eureka Springs is chock full of, you guessed it, springs, and wherever you have that much water flow in a rocky area, it’s a safe bet you’ll have caverns, too.

We asked the host of our Airbnb which cavern she would visit if she could only see one. (So many caverns, so little time.) She immediately suggested Cosmic Cavern, which is a karst and limestone cave in Berryville, about a half hour away. (It’s also about a half hour away from Branson, Missouri, if you’re into that place. I found it tacky, myself.) We do love a good cavern, so off we went.

It turns out that this was the perfect activity for the day, because it began to rain. You can visit this cave seven days a week, year round, and it is climate-controlled by nature. The cave temperature will always be 64 degrees. In other words, refreshing in summer, warm in winter. But expect to have a bit of water dripping on your head, as is typical of most caves. You may want to bring a hat.

The cave is also used as a wedding venue, but anyone wearing a white dress might live to regret it. Just sayin’. The cavern is also decorated for Halloween and the tour is more ghost-oriented during that time.

While the parking lot and the gift shop are wheelchair accessible, the cavern itself is definitely not. If stairs are a challenge for you, you won’t find this cave a pleasant experience, either. There are a lot of slippery stairs to descend and climb, and a few of them are rather narrow. It makes perfect sense to me that the phrase “cave in” means to give up, because it was tempting, given my back issues. But I soldiered on because it’s a fascinating place.

Our guide was a delight, and she told us a lot of stories about the cave’s history and ecology. The guided tour takes about an hour and 20 minutes, and you’ll walk approximately 1/3 of a mile in the well-lit cavern. (I’m sure that the wiring isn’t exactly up to code, but it is well out of reach. Electrocuting a tourist would be very bad optics.)

On the tour, you’ll see two lakes that are so deep that divers were unable to measure it. They made it to 70 feet in the frigid water, and had to resurface, having never seen the bottom. One of the past owners stocked trout in the south lake, and they remained there for 50 years. The tourists used to delight in feeding them. They claim that a few blind, colorless trout remain, but we didn’t see any.

But you can still see the remnants of a raft made of barrels in one of the lakes. The builder of the raft actually took the tour once, when he was 90. He said back in 1910, he and a few other boys used to sneak into the cave, which had not yet been developed for tourism. They decided they’d see where the water went, so they built the raft. But since they were down there in the pitch black, their raft crashed, and they had to swim back. He said the water was so cold that they were blue when they got out.

There are various formations in the cave, including a 9-foot-tall soda straw. That one can be seen, but it’s way out of reach due to its fragility. You’ll also see cave bacon, cave popcorn, the ubiquitous stalactites and stalagmites, flowstones, helictites, and draperies. I’ll include some of our photos below, but as a teaser, here’s the soda straw.

Sadly, some of the cave walls have a bit of slime growing on them. This was attributed to the fact that land above the caves is owned by farmers who have cows. These cows produce “patties” and as the rain washes their microbes into the ground above, it has leeched into the cave and provided the perfect food for those organisms. Thank goodness the “patty” smell did not accompany the microbes.

You can also see black smoke stains on the wall here and there. In the mining days, they used burning tires to smoke out the bats. A few have recently returned, but not enough to consider a colony. We walked past three tiny tri-colored ones as we climbed back to the surface level. They were so tiny and nestled so deep in the rocks that we couldn’t get a good picture of them.

The cave is also known for being home to the Ozark Blind Cave Salamander. But these are reclusive little guys, so tourists rarely see them. Our guide had only seen one once, and that was when she was being trained and only a few people were with her. She has been working there for several years. So imagine our shock when the tour group behind us got to see one. But by the time we got back to that area, it had disappeared.

The cave owners are a quirky bunch. They left a little rubber ducky in the cave as a reminder that you should duck when you reached a low section of the pathway. They have also almost doubled the size of the cavern because they could hear running water on the other side of the rock, and decided to gain access by using quarter sticks of C4 to blow holes through the wall. (What could possibly go wrong?) They discovered even more caverns once the dust settled. Much digging and debris removal was also involved.

For those of you who are willing, but unable to take the tour, check out this YouTube video.

At the end of the tour, you exit through the gift shop, as is always the case in places like this. (Fair enough. In this case, you enter through it as well.) I saw some of the coolest tye dye shirts that I’ve ever seen there. I especially loved the brown and rust one. I’m still kicking myself for not getting one or two. There’s also a tiny but very interesting museum on the upper floor.

Tickets for the tour currently cost $20 for adults, $10 for younger children. There is a discount coupon on their website if you’re interested. The cavern’s website also mentioned that you could do gem panning there, but I somehow overlooked that opportunity.

The cave was discovered in 1845 by a prospector who was searching for lead with his sons. He didn’t find any there, but he named the cave Moore’s Cave after himself. In the 1880’s, a beautiful, translucent, honey-colored onyx was found on the upper levels in abundance. Once mined, much of this was carved into figurines and jewelry, which was sold in Eureka Springs. Later, this onyx was used as the gear shift knob on some Model A Fords. (The cavern owners, and even some of the tour guides, would be willing to buy one of those gear shifts if you come across one. Photos would be awesome, too, if you absolutely refuse to part with it.)

Onyx mining went on until around 1927, when a stairway was built and the cave was opened for tourism. The owners at the time carried on the tradition of having a total disregard for the cavern’s fragile ecosystem. (That’s when they stocked one of the lakes with trout.)

Cosmic Cavern has had at least 14 owners over the years. It has had many other names, including Moore’s Cave, Maple Springs Cave, Bear Cave, Joe Johnson Cave, Mystic Cave, Majestic Cave, and Mystery Cavern. Cosmic Cavern was the perfect name for the place back in the 1970’s, when they used to have psychedelic black light tours in there. The guide didn’t go into detail about the shenanigans that went on down there at the time. That’s probably best. But the name Cosmic Cavern stuck.

Here are a few more of the photos we took during the visit. The cavern’s website also has an interesting video and even more photos. Enjoy!