You hike down the side of the canyon. In a few places, the park rangers have smoothed it out to make for a safe descent, and at one point there’s a railing to stop you slipping off the side onto a vertical fall. (How did the native people make their way down? I’m guessing they climbed up from the bottom rather than trying to get to it from the top as we’re doing.) Then, as you reach the end of this wall, you come to the cave:
The fence used to be much higher and you couldn’t go through it. That was after the cave was vandalized in the 1960s. But now you can go in, and you’re trusted to stay on the wooden boardwalk and not cross the rope. The cave is not widely advertised or promoted – again in order to protect it. And most people who come to the region have no idea it exists. On this Sunday afternoon in mid-August – the height of the summer season – I was the only person there.
Faces from the Past
By Michael Mountain,
The Trail to the Indian Canyon Cave
You hike down the side of the canyon. In a few places, the park rangers have smoothed it out to make for a safe descent, and at one point there’s a railing to stop you slipping off the side onto a vertical fall. (How did the native people make their way down? I’m guessing they climbed up from the bottom rather than trying to get to it from the top as we’re doing.) Then, as you reach the end of this wall, you come to the cave:
The fence used to be much higher and you couldn’t go through it. That was after the cave was vandalized in the 1960s. But now you can go in, and you’re trusted to stay on the wooden boardwalk and not cross the rope. The cave is not widely advertised or promoted – again in order to protect it. And most people who come to the region have no idea it exists. On this Sunday afternoon in mid-August – the height of the summer season – I was the only person there.
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