Howe Caverns in New York’s Schoharie Valley has been a tourist destination since it first opened to the public in 1843, but for more than a century tourists have been unable to access a significant portion of the original discovery. A new tour opening in May will allow guests to see another side. WAMC’s Lucas Willard got a sneak peak…
“This elevator ride takes 35 seconds, brings us 156 feet underground,” we’re told.
The elevator descending into Howe Caverns carries more than 150,000 guests every year. Visitors step off into the cave and traverse a brick walkway that heads through beautiful rock formations, lit with vibrant colors.
But today there’s no time to stop and look, as cave guide Guy Schiavone leads a small band of explorers wearing white Tyvek suits and headlamps past the families and school field trips.
Schiavone helps us into the flat-bottomed boat to take us to an area previously off-limits.
“Now just be aware just that the boat’s going to get close to the walls and some little ledges, so as you’re filming make sure you’re watching what’s ahead of you, just in case you need to duck your head out of the way…”
The river that flows beneath the walkway carved the limestone cave millions of years ago.
“It’s all happening,” says Schiavone.
“It is! We’re going live!”
That’s fellow guide Mark Spaulding – also known as Sparky.
Stepping out of the boat, we head along the stream to the dam. Buried in the mud beside the dam is one of founder Lester Howe’s wooden boats – one of the early improvements to the original cave tour.
“People in those days were in the cave for eight hours or more. He didn’t want them walking through water up their waist before they were even halfway through the cave.”
The dam was built in the early 1900’s by the Helderberg Cement Co. after a 900-foot section of the cave was destroyed by mining efforts, closing off the original entrance.
Schiavone and Sparky pull the dam door open.
“That’s going to be a pretty deep step right there, just so you know,” Schiavone.
Stepping through, we become the first visitors to see beyond the dam doors in more than a century. More than 150 feet underground and far from any sign of sunlight, not much has changed.
Hunched over and using our headlights, we follow rusty pipes installed by Lester Howe that were once intended to carry water and gas for lighting.
And unlike the multicolored traditional tour, some bats are still clinging to the ceiling. It’s 52 degrees down here year round.
“Hopefully by the time tours start the bats will all be out and this tour will not be offered during the hibernation season,” says Schiavone.
One of our first stops is the echoing Congress Hall.
“We believe that rocks were taken from the stream bed and piled and arranged on this side in order to make kind of a makeshift walkway through this area. We don’t think is something that Lester Howe did, we think that the people that took over ownership after Lester Howe sold the cave might have done this,” says Schiavone. “You’ll notice evidence of this old walkway almost through the entire passageway here…”
The tour passes beneath sparkling gypsum deposits, and into a room called Franklin Avenue, where Howe once told visitors Benjamin Franklin supposedly stayed. We continue down until we reach Signature Rock, the new tour’s namesake.
A large mass of flowstone has hundreds of initials and signatures dating back to 1843 – Howe’s name is displayed in large block letters.
“We were looking at all the signatures on the rock, to see if there was anything notable, significant about any of them. We were coming up short for the most part. But then, we found this, right here…”
But to find out who, you’ll have to take the tour yourself.
Beyond Signature Rock is an old railing from Howe’s walkway, the furthest point on tour. It’s surrounded by collapsed rubble and debris.
On the way back some of us squeeze through small openings to see the Tower of Babel, an enormous stalagmite. There’s also the Haunted Castle, where water drips from the ceiling and bat bones thousands of years old are collected on the wall.
After spending time in the cave’s passages, the tour returns to the main gallery of the cave. Becky Stark, who went along with the tour group, worked at Howe Caverns as a teenager but had never seen beyond the dam doors. She now serves as Tourism Coordinator for Schoharie County.
“Now that it’s going to be open for the public to come and take a tour to see that, and the fact that nobody has been back there since the 1900s, it’s really, really cool to be part of the history and one of the first ones to experience it.”
The two-and-a-half hour Signature Rock Discovery Tour will run daily starting May 3rd.