Western Montana

Although Lewis and Clark did not discover the caverns, they did cross near the location of the caves on their expedition. It was David Morrison along with a hunting group who discovered them in the early 20^th century. Morrison gave tours of the caves he discovered, however a disagreement with the Northern Pacific railroad emerged over who was the rightful owner of the land. The railroad took Morrison to court and later won, turning the land over to the federal government. Morrison still continued to give tours by cutting the locks off the gate to the caves put there by the railroad until 1932 when he died. In 1937 the government gave the land to the park system and became Montana’s first state park.

My friend and I had both been to the caves before as children and were now returning about 20 years later. We stayed in the campground located about 3 miles down the road from the caverns. I remember as a child that I begged my parents to sleep in the cab of the truck since I was terrified of rattlesnakes, a native species to the area. Now that I am an adult I decided to put my fear aside and camp in a tent. Everything turned out fine and I never saw one rattlesnake. The campground is a handy place to stay, since it is so close and only costs $15 a night. They also have showers available which is a must for me while camping.

We woke up early to take the 9am tour of the caverns. I was surprised by the amount of people who wanted to take the tour as we got there around 8:30am and the first tour was almost full with 30 people. We wandered around the tourist information center as we waited for our tour to start and found historical information about the caverns. Once it was time for our tour to meet we all gathered in front of the ticket window and began our 3/4 of a mile hike up the hill to the beginning of our adventure. Luckily we had gone early in the day as the weather only got hotter as the day progressed, so we had dodged the heat by going early in the morning.

We arrived at the mouth of the caverns and waited for our guide to arrive. Once she got to the caverns she informed us of a few rules and a bit of history about the caves. As we stood inside the entrance she asked if anyone felt uncomfortable being in the caves. No one seemed uncomfortable so we continued on our tour. We climbed down a stairwell into a cave room and the guide asked again if everyone was OK. We had two people leave our tour as they felt they could not continue. We moved along to the different rooms learning about the stalactites, stalagmites and columns. The guide was very informative and both my friend and I remembered the stories and “jokes” that were told along the way of the tour. It was nice to see that the charm of the tour had not changed. Both my friend and I remembered the tour a little bit differently from our childhood as we both did not remember all the ducking and crouching we had to do as we walked around the caves and the beaver slide, where you actually slide on your bum. The slide felt a lot longer when we were younger, then the about 3 feet that the slide actually was. We attributed our memories to us being a lot shorter, so it did not seem as though we were ducking as much.

The caves were a lot of fun and brought back great memories from my childhood. If you are interested in going to the caverns they are located 13 miles east of Whitehall Montana on Highway 2, or about 35 miles east of Butte Montana. Cave tours are from 5/1 to 9/30, starting at 9am to 4:30pm, or 9am to 6:30pm from 6/15 to 9/1. The tour consists of climbing several stairs which can be slippery and some bending and ducking as you traverse the caverns. The tour is $10 per person and about 2 hours long. It is also a cool 52 degrees so you may want to take a jacket.