Hotel Congress is believed to be home to a number of supernatural guests. 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.A fireworks party with live music runs till 11 at Hotel Congress. 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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