Crystal Caves
By some accounts Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks could have been set aside solely to protect the amazing caves found in this area of the Southern Sierra Nevada. The two parks protect half of the caves more than a mile long in California, the longest cave in the state, numerous karst streams and some of the best alpine karst topography in the United States. The caves contain Pleistocene era fossils, rare minerals and unique animals. They are the sites of numerous scientific research projects and provide recreational opportunities to thousands of park visitors each year. Efforts to protect and manage this resource are nearly as old as the parks themselves. The parks' first superintendent, Walter Fry, gave detailed descriptions of five of the caves in his 1918 annual report. Crystal Cave has been one of the parks' primary visitor attractions since 1941. In the 1970s, the Cave Research Foundation documented more than 80 caves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon. However, it was the discovery of Hurricane Crawl Cave in 1986 that encouraged the parks to begin an active cave management program. This effort resulted in the employment of a "cave specialist" in 1992 and the completion of a Cave Management Plan in 1994. A revision of the first overall Cave Management Plan was also completed in 1999. Specific management plans have also been created for Soldiers, Crystal and Hurricane Crawl caves. These plans combine management strategies in a single cave. Some passages are open to visitation, some sections have visit restrictions and other passages are completely closed to protect delicate cave features.
