MITCHELL'S CAVERNS

In the middle of the Mojave Desert at the State Preserve we ran across another "over achiever's" work.

His name was Jack Mitchell and in 1930 he discovered, while mining for gold & silver, these deep caverns formed millions of years ago.

The entrance to the caverns are way up the side of a mountain that took us 30 miles & over 2'000 feet in elevations from the highway.


Then we walked a narrow 4 ft. wide trail around that mountain for another half hour... with just a single chain to keep you from a l..o..n..g drop.


The cave entrance had a meager 8 x 6 opening that our guide told us it was made bigger by the Park System in the '60's along with other improvements to the inside like better walkways & lighting.


It's hard to imagine that Mitchell gave tours without these upgrades. Our group had only 8 in it and it was tight at times....He had groups of 50 at a time & just gave everyone a candle and said "LETS GO!!!


This is a "dry cave" with very little moisture present so the current development of cave formations were few...but the beauty of the past 250 million years are astounding.

SanTony