![]() ![]() Watch your speed as you can get going fast here and there are a couple tight corners where you could find yourself wresting with some unfriendly cactus. When you are getting close to the cars, about a quarter mile, there is a trail split off to the left where there are sometimes trucks and horse trailers parked. Hang out in the shade for a bit and return the way you came. To continue to three bridges go downhill for another 3 miles. Some choose this as a turnaround point, just over 6 miles into the ride. Follow the twists and turns and be ready for the grind up to what some call Castle Lookout Hill. Travel through the only "wooded" section on the trail. Take a sharp right and look for the trail 50' down the road on the left. ![]() There are sections where you have to go up and over rocks and find your correct line.įollow the trail out of the park up and over some rocky parts. After this is gets a little more technical, but nothing too bad. The ride starts off with a flowy section to Collosal Cave Mountain Park. Here are 10 stops to make on a fun-filled west-to-east road trip along I-10. Scenic route: From East Broadway in Tucson, turn south onto scenic Old Spanish Trail and follow it about seventeen miles to Colossal Cave.Īlternate route: Take Interstate Highway I-10 east from Tucson to Exit 279 (Vail Exit), turn north, and follow signs for about six miles to Colossal Cave.Īdmission fees for guided cave tour: Reservations recommended.This is a fun out and back section on the AZ trail. This highway runs the length of the U.S., but a particular stretch between Tucson, Arizona, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, offers a pleasing mix of historic sites, state and national parks, and kitschy, gram-worthy stops. Trail rides are also available from the ranch. Many people enjoy hiking the trail system and birding along the riparian area. There is a second gift shop, a snack bar and a gemstone sluice along with a butterfly garden and tortoise enclosure. The one hundred and twenty-year-old historic La Posta Quemada Ranch, a working cattle ranch, is located within the park. Wells Fargo never did reveal exactly how much money was actually stolen. What finally happened to the money is still murky. According to rumor, up to sixty thousand dollars were hidden away in the cave then later retrieved by one of the robbers. In the second robbery, the bandits turned the locomotive over on its side with the engineer still in it. In one holdup, the robbers disconnected the train's engine, mail and express cars and took off for Tucson, leaving the rest of the train and passengers stranded in the desert. According to the legend, the cavern served as a bandit hideout twice in 1887, after two exciting train robberies. There is a ramp to the gift shop, but the cave itself is not wheelchair accessible.ĭeep inside the cave, tour guides explain how the cave formed, point out the beautiful formations, and tell the "Bandit Legend," the favorite part of the tour for many guests. Tours leave from the gift shop at the entrance. Today visitors take a fifty-minute, one-half mile guided tour down six stories into Colossal Cave to see the beautiful formations. Recent studies show it once served as a Hohokam shrine. The cave was officially "discovered" in 1879, but artifacts and soot-blackened ceilings testify to use by prehistoric cultures. Today, Colossal Cave is "dry," or dormant, and the formations are no longer growing.Ĭolossal Cave Mountain Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it certainly has a history. As the climate became more arid, the cave gradually dried up. Over millions of years, stalactites, stalagmites, columns and draperies formed slowly from water dripping from the ceiling. Groundwater seeping through the Escabrosa limestone formed the cave. Due to the enormously complex three-dimensional maze, it took over two years to map the two miles of passageway that are fully explored. The cave is not fully explored, but scientists estimate that there are at least thirty nine miles of natural tunnels inside the cavern. Located in the Rincon Mountains at an elevation of three thousand seven hundred feet, the entrance commands a panoramic view of the Sonoran Desert. One of the largest dry caves in North America, it maintains a pleasant seventy degrees Fahrenheit temperature year-around. It's always perfect weather for touring Colossal Cave, just twenty two miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona. Colossal Cave Sonoran Desert - Vail, Arizona
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