VAIL, Ariz. — Exciting things are happening at Colossal Cave for the first time in decades. The team there has uncovered a few new parts of the cave, and they actually went inside them.
"Everyone says it might be the most explored cave in all of Arizona, and there's there's nothing more to see, and I just didn't believe it," said Cave Lead Dalton Carper. He'll admit it, he has a taste of adventure, and was largely the catalyst for starting this new exploration.
"I wanted to test my knowledge of the cave, my knowledge of the maps, and see if I could change that rhetoric on the cave," he said. "So I decided to make my own map of the cave, bring it home, study it, circle the open endings of the map, and see what I could what I could change on that."
So after work, he and a few cave guides at the park set out to see what they could find, squeezing into tiny spaces the size of an iPad, previously thought to be dead ends on the map.
"We did find new passages that led to some pretty cool rooms of the cave that nobody has ever seen before, Carper said. "So it is cool seeing that there are still rooms inside of this cave that have been untouched by humans."
That marked the first discovery like this at Colossal Cave since 1987.
Arik Young and Noah Preuss, who joined Carper on the exploration, even got to name two of the new passages after themselves.
"I helped map out Noah's Arch" said Preuss. "My other co-explorers weren't able to fit in there as well as I could. I went as far back in there as I could, until I physically couldn't fit anymore, and then I just turned right back around, and it looked like it was going to be in the shape of an arch, like you just go up and then down a little bit, and that's how it ended up being named Noah's Arch."
Young's namesake was inspired by the fact that he briefly got stuck in it.
"My arm got stuck going through and I realized, okay, this might not happen. I might not be able to get out of here, which was like, 'oh no, we're in an unmapped area of the cave,'" he explained. "We were thinking of calling it Arik's Lodge, because I was hanging out there for a little bit."
But potentially the biggest twist, was that Carper and another guide, Mike Knox, found a room with water in it. Up until now, Colossal Cave has been at least thought to be completely dry.
"A lot of people like to call it a dead cave," Carper explained. "It is a dormant cave, and this only proves that it can become active again. If we get lots of monsoon rain or snow melt, we can get some new growth in the cave."
Exploring Colossal Cave meant a lot of uncertainty -- in the dark -- but Carper says he's grateful and proud they were willing to risk it to find what they found.
Of course, they all plan to keep going, and to go back in.
"Just adding new parts to the cave, to me," Carper said, "is incredibly important."
Claire Graham is an anchor and reporter for KGUN 9. She grew up in Tucson and graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in musical theatre. Claire spent a decade in Washington state, where she worked in journalism, met her husband and welcomed their baby boy, before moving back home. Share your story ideas and important issues with Claire by emailing claire.graham@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and X.
