Rick Marino,
DESERT [Sun] magazine
Some years back, while I was out exploring the remote stretches of what is left of Route 66 in the remote desert east of Barstow, I happened upon a sign along Essex Road. It pointed to “Mitchell Caverns” but had a “closed” sign underneath it. Fascinated by this discovery, I immediately looked up the caverns, and found they had recently been closed with no date set for reopening. Bummer!
Well, time heals all wounds, as they say, and that it flies – and that it does. Mitchell Caverns is NOW OPEN again after being closed for about seven years for infrastructure upgrades. When you see how remote the caverns are, it makes a lot more sense why improvements would take so long.
Surrounded by Mojave National Preserve, the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area is where the Mitchell Caverns are located. It’s more than 100 miles east of Barstow, about 60 miles west of Needles and 16 miles north of Interstate 40 on Essex Road. At an altitude of 4,300 feet, this location is very remote to say the least. The nearest gas station is 24 miles away to the east in Fenner, or 40 miles west in Ludlow (Grab cheap gas and a classic diner meal at the Ludlow Café!).
Named after Jack and Ida Mitchell (who led tours of the caverns as a Route 66 attraction from 1934 to 1954), the caverns are now part of the state park system. It is essential to have a reservation for tours, which take place Friday through Sunday only. There are only two of them per day, at 11a.m. and 2 p.m.. Each hold a maximum of 15 people. Reservations are NOT available online at this time and must be made by phone to the visitor’s center during the week.
This road trip is a long day-trip unless you are passing through or plan to camp out, so it’s best to get an early start as it is about three hours from the Coachella Valley. After breakfast and fueling up in Twentynine Palms, I take Amboy Road all the way until it ends in Amboy on Route 66. Amboy is sort of a ghost town – home to Roy’s Motel and Café that no longer serves any food – but is now a last chance for gas and cold drinks, snacks and souvenirs. Roy’s is a great place to take photos and is becoming popular with the Instagram crowd. The motel rooms are home to art exhibitions, too.
Down the road is the Amboy Crater, an extinct volcano that you can hike up to and around – best to do this in the wintertime! Right now, Route 66 is closed about 4 miles east of Amboy, so make a left on Kelso Road and head north to Interstate 40 before winding east on the interstate. Take the Essex Road exit and follow the signs all the way to Mitchell Caverns.
The road slowly gains altitude, and the desert plants get thicker and more diverse as does the terrain, all the way up the parking lot. When you arrive at the visitor’s center, a cabin built from rocks and stones which is located in the Mitchells’ original home, you really have to wonder how rugged it must have been to live up here, let alone build out the other buildings as guest quarters and clear a path from the road down below. I learn there is a spring about three-quarters of a mile away, which Jack ran a pipe from for water.
Inside the visitor’s center are many displays showing how the caverns were formed over millions of years as well as those that contain fossils of ancient animals and artifacts of the Chemehuevi tribe that have been using the caverns for approximately 1,000 years. Check in with the ranger to pay your fee and the trip to the caverns begins.
Ranger Andy Fitzpatrick has been working at the caverns for a couple years and knows everything you could ever think to ask about the place. The trail to the caverns is about a half-mile hike, pretty level and very easy, and the view is worth the drive alone. On a clear day, you can see all the way to Arizona!
Along the way, there are a few prospecting holes that Jack mined looking for silver back in the day. As you round the bend, you see the entrance to the caves looking at you, the “Eyes of the Mountain,” Andy says is the Chemehuevi name. Crossing the footbridge over a ravine, above your head are ancient pinyon pine, junipers and scrub oaks in the canyon below the red rocks of Fountain Peak.
At the entrance, ranger Andy asks if I have been in any cave systems recently or if anything I am wearing has been. There is a fungal disease, White Nose Syndrome, affecting bats that has been spreading across the country over the years. With a firm “NO” we walk in, and it is every bit of awesome that I imagined.
First off, the temperature is a cool and perfect 65 degrees (always, I’m told), and the formations cover every inch of the place. It feels like drips of molten wax – like an ancient candelabra, just bigger! LED lights are part of the renovation and are perfectly placed to get the maximum effect. We follow a concrete pathway (keep in mind there are some stairs here and there), stopping in different areas while the ranger shows and tells about the many different features we are seeing. Turns out, we find a bat hibernating!
We also look and look for two different albeit tiny insects, a Niptus beetle and a pseudo scorpion (kind of like a land crab) that are found nowhere else on earth but here in the caverns. (Don’t worry, they are only about an eighth of an inch in size!) I am bummed we do not find any this trip.
There are two large main caves: El Pakiva (The Devil’s House) is at the entrance and Tecopa, named after a Shoshonean chief, is at the exit. The trail inside is only about a quarter-mile, and there are some narrow passages between some of the areas, but none of it bothered me at all. I was worried it would! There are several different formations you will see – all are spectacular. My favorite is when a black light brings the texture of the cave to life.
These are the only limestone caves in the California state park system, I learn, with the oldest rocks. The quick and easy explanation of how the caverns got here is this: Think 300 million years ago, a warm shallow sea covered the area, and tiny shells and corals piled up to create limestone layers. Between earth movement and wet and dry periods, the caverns were created and drip, drip, drips over those millions of years carrying calcified water created stalactites from above to the stalagmites below. Some even meet to form large columns!
After coming back out, I understand how and why the Mitchells sought to share this with the everyone – I would, too. Well, I guess I just did! After all, it’s just a road trip away.
