Texas Romantic Getaway: Hill Country Caves
Recommended for: outdoor lovers, spelunking, hot weather getaways

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At Longhorn Caverns State Park (6211 Park Rd., 4 miles off TX 29, 512-756-4680; www.longhorncaverns.com), near Burnet in the Hill Country, you’ll hear a story that’s the stuff of romance novels.

A century ago, Comanches kidnapped a young woman named Mariel King and brought her back to the cavern. The Native Americans did not realize they were followed by three Texas Rangers. When they prepared a campfire, the Rangers fired upon them, grabbed Mariel King, and raced for the entrance. Meanwhile, the surviving Comanches regrouped and began their counterattack, falling upon the Rangers before they reached the cavern entrance. A desperate hand-to-hand battle took place and the Rangers finally escaped with Mariel King. Ending the story with a fairy-tale flourish, Miss King later married one of her rescuers, Logan Van Deveer, and the couple made their home in Burnet.

The cave’s other uses weren’t quite so romantic. Years later, Confederate soldiers used the cave’s main room as a munitions factory. Bat guano from the cave was an ingredient in the manufacture of gunpowder. Additional small rooms in the back reaches of the cavern were used as storerooms for the gunpowder.

The cave went unused for several decades until the Gay Twenties. A local businessman opened a dance hall in the largest room of the cave, building a wooden dance floor several feet above the limestone. When it proved successful, he then opened a restaurant in the next room, lowering food through a hole in the cavern ceiling. Next, an area minister decided to take advantage of the cool temperature and built bleachers to accommodate crowds for Sunday services. When the Depressions struck, the cavern was purchased by the state and opened as a park in 1932.

Longhorn Caverns is just one of seven commercial caves in Texas, each offering well-lighted, easy-to-follow trails. Here you’ll view a quiet world where progress takes place one drop of water at a time, in a romantic atmosphere cooled by nature’s air-conditioning.

The small town of Boerne, northwest of San Antonio on I-10, is home to Cave Without a Name (325 Kreutzberg Rd. for 5 miles, 830-537-4212; www.cavewithoutaname.com admission fee). This 50-million-year-old cave is privately owned and, while not as well known as other Hill Country caverns, boasts many beautiful formations. A 45-minute tour takes you through a series of rooms, including one with Texas-sized stalagmites. Gravel walkways wind through the cavern.

Nearby Cascade Caverns (I-10, exit 543, 830-755-8080) was named for its 90-foot waterfall. Cascade Caverns has welcomed the public since 1932, but it’s clear that both man and animals have been using the cave much longer. One of the first visitors over 50,000 years ago was a mastodon whose bones remain here today. Later, ancient Native American tribes held ceremonies within the cave’s first room, fearing to venture beyond the reassuring sunlight.

The largest cave in the area is Natural Bridge Caverns (RR 3009 SW of New Braunfels, 210-651-6101; www.naturalbridgecaverns.com), reminiscent of New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns. Tours take visitors through enormous rooms that look like the playing fields of prehistoric dinosaurs, with names like “The Castle of the White Giants.” Imagine the surprise of four spelunkers from St. Mary’s University when they discovered these gargantuan limestone halls in 1960. After their discovery, cave developers worked to carve passages from room to room, resulting in a comfortable walk through this long cavern.

Natural Bridge Caverns takes its name from a rock bridge between two sinkholes, the original entrance to the mouth of the cave. Modern man has known of the sinkholes since the 19th century, but there is evidence of much earlier visitors. Bones of a grizzly bear at least 8,000 years old have been discovered, as well as human bones, stone weapons, and other American Indian artifacts.

North of San Antonio on I-35 is Wonder Cave (Wonder World Dr. exit off I-35 S., 512-392-3760; www.wonderworldpark.com, admission fee), a cavern where you won’t see sparkling formations, waterfalls, or auditorium-sized rooms. What you will see is a very unique attraction: a view of the Balcones Fault from inside the fault. The cave was produced during a 3-1/2-minute earthquake 30 million years ago, the same one that formed the Balcones Fault, an 1,800-mile line separating the western Hill Country from the flat eastern farmland. Within the cave, you’ll see boulders lodged in the fissure. Wonder Cave is open from March until November.

Continue north on I-35 to Georgetown, home of Inner Space (I-35 exit 259, 512-863-5545). The cave was discovered in 1963 when road crews building the highway drilled into one of the large rooms. Consequent drilling and exploration revealed that a major cavern wound below the proposed highway. Remains of Ice Age mastodons, wolves, sabre-toothed tigers, and glyptodon (a kind of prehistoric armadillo) have been discovered here, and an 80-foot cavern wall has been decorated with a modern artist’s renderings of these ancient creatures.

Finally, the Caverns of Sonora (I-10 west of Junction to RM 1989, 915-387-3105; www.cavernsofsonora.com) have been described by some cave experts as the most beautiful in the world. This scenic spot offers three tours, a 45-minute, a 75-minute version, and a 2 1/2 hour version, presenting visitors with spectacular stalactites and stalagmites as well as unusual butterfly-shaped formations.