My post is for the #bouldersunday challenge hosted by @shasta and also for @mountainmonday hosted by @bashadow
Mitchell Caverns are in the Providence Mountains, located in the Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California.
The caves look like 2 eyes looking out from the mountain.
There are 3 caves located at 4,300 feet in the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve. The caverns include two main caves named El Pakiva (The Devil’s House) and Tecopa (after a Shoshonean chieftain). Inside the caves there are thousands of formations deposited over eons by water seeping through the limestone.
The caverns were closed not long after I was there in 2010 until 2017, after the two Rangers retired and were not replaced, due to budget cuts. That is when vandals plundered and damaged the Preserve, ripping out thousands of feet of electrical copper wire, they stole metal signs and diesel-powered generators and ransacked the visitor center.
After extensive renovations, reservations can be made to tour the caverns again.
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Hello!
This post has been manually curated, resteemed
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Thanks! That looks delicious!
How sad. But glad it was restored back. Beautiful pics. Was it a warm day ?
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It was in January, sweatshirt weather... The perfect time to leave Wisconsin and visit the desert.
What a cool rock and the caves! I love how those stalactites and other formation look, you can imagine whatever you like :)
Sorry to hear that vandals damaged this beautiful place. Hope caverns will be restored and opened soon.
Wow, cool place and fantastic boulder subject. Love how beautiful the muted sky looks against the earth tones:)
These are old photos, and I had not considered using them before for #bouldersunday.
What beautiful caves and stunning views it's a shame it had to close down :)
The view of the cave is very beautiful, it feels like traveling there.
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Reminds me mountains in arizona. Have you ever been to kartchner caverns?
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I have not. I have to be feeling particularly brave to go into caves and don't usually seek them out. Tunnels and caves are not my favorite things!
Claustrophobia, karchner caverns is a big open cave worth the formations. And its a living cave.
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I could probably do that!
Impressive cave pictures!
I remember visiting a cave long time ago as a child. Sadly I had no chance for revisit or to see another.
I have toured several different caves, and they are a sight to see! There is one that here in Wisconsin called Cave of the Mounds and I've been through that several times, usually escorting school or Girl Scout groups along with my children.
Amazing :) Cheers :)
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Thanks!
the mountains that save a lot of natural tourism areas, hopefully the renovations will quickly finish and can be reused by the community
Thanks! The renovations are complete and it is open again.
Gorgeous pictures! I know the Mitchell Caverns well, Melinda. Do you and I share the same stomping grounds?? I had no idea! I did my apprenticeship in San Bernardino County, I grew up on dirt bikes so everything between Lancaster and Mammoth is mapped out on two wheels like the back of my hand.
Excellent images, @melinda010100, you just took me back about two decades—thank you. What’s next, Afton Canton? 😉
Thanks! No, I was in that area years ago for a month to escape the Wisconsin winter. I fell in love with the Mojave Desert.
Wonderful combo like peanut butter and jelly, mountains
and boulders yum! :-) What a beautiful view! The sixth photo
from the top looks like a fossil tree ear mushroom! lol
showing these awesome stoney mountains inside and out! What a very cool place @melinda010100! Thank you for
I'm glad that you like them! When I came across them I was pretty sure that I had never posted them here before and wanted to use the pictures! I'm glad that you think they fit the tag.
So much beauty hidden in our own little corner of the world! Totally awesome.
I won't comment on the vandalism...there are no words for that. :(
Que lindas imagenes de la creacion de la naturaleza,me recuerda algunas imagenes a la cueva del guacharo en el Estado Monagas,muy hermoso su trabajo amiga,saludos
¡La naturaleza es tan increíble!
These are absolutely magical. We have caves like that in Slovakia too and I visited one, but that was long time ago 😍
I was in a huge cave in France, and before that had never given any thought to caves in other parts of the world.
I have lots of pictures of them on Pinterest from all over the world, lol.
Howdy today Melinda! I didn't realize how big those are from the distance photo but they're really big and deep aren't they? What kind of idiots would tear up a place like that? Morons. Very cool post and photos though!
From the things they took they must have been collecting to sell at the scrap yard. The place is quite remote, so it was probably easy pickings for them. Too bad the scrap yard didn't turn them in when they came to sell the stuff.
That makes sense, yeah I think the scrap yards just turn a blind eye because it's hard to tell what's legitimate or stolen.
Jim worked behind the counter at a scrap yard after he retired from GM and they called the cops regularly when people brought in obviously stolen metal. Park benches, cemetery veteran markers, signs and such. In a small town they knew their regular scrappers pretty well and knew who the thieves were.
Very nice photos! That looks like an interesting part of the country to explore. I was close, once, but never got to CA.
Too bad about the jerks destroying things, but at least they didn't vandalize the cave formations.
Sounds like they were looking for metal to sell at the scrap yard. I'm glad they didn't harm the formations in the caves.
There was a trash of that a few years ago, when copper was high. Apparently, drug addicts were breaking into homes to steal piping to fund their habit.
Wow what an amazing place. It's so isolated. I've never heard of it before. I'm glad they got control of it again and it's open :)
It sounds like it is better than ever now!
Fascinating scenes @melinda010100 Those rock formations are amazing. I simply cannot fathom the mindset of vandals who do so much damage to the wonders of nature. It would be fun to do a tour of these caverns.
The caverns are in a pretty isolated area, so I can see why they got away with it. It just good that they were only after the metal and didn't vandalize the cave formations.
Very true Melinda. I wonder if is possible to install security cameras there even although it looks to be fairly remote?
@melinda010100 wow quite the view, makes me want to travel to the deserts. Cool looking hard rock caves as well, ours are all dirt.
That whole area was a great place to spend the month of January and escape Wisconsin winter!
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