Explorers
Back in 1960, four college students from St. Mary’s University were convinced that large underground passages must exist under the amazing 60-foot limestone bridge.
After they obtained permission to explore and on their fourth expedition, the students felt a cool draft from a rubble-filled crawlway that could indicate the presence of more rooms or passages.
The explorers made their way carefully climbing and crawling through two miles of vast cavern passage. The discoverers knew immediately what an astonishing find they had made. The first 1/2 mile is the most spectacular part of the caverns.
Discovery Tour
Today you can visit the caverns the four students discovered. Natural Bridge Caverns has named this their Discovery Tour. – the most spectacular part of the caverns, for the enjoyment of guests from around the world. Discovery Tour was developed with two main goals in mind: preservation of the caverns’ environment and comfort of its guests.
Bracken Bat Flight
Natural Bridge Caverns partners with Bat Conservation International offering limited Bracken Bat Flight public tours to the Bracken Cave during the summer. Bracken Cave is the summer home of more than 15 million Mexican free-tailed bats. Guinness Book of World Records acknowledges Bracken as the world’s largest bat colony and one of the largest concentrations of mammals on earth.
Mexican free-tailed bats are an essential predator of corn earworm moths and other crop pests. The Bracken colony alone is estimated to consume over 100 tons of these moths every summer night.
The emergence of these millions of bats, as they spiral out of the cave at dusk for their nightly insect hunt, is an unforgettable sight. I agree!! The night I watched them they continued to swarm out in a spiral for hours on end. Mother Nature at her Finest !!