“If you can squeeze through the gauge, you can get through the cave,” Deb Jeffrey, our guide, informs us. A couple of the more agile (and thinner) members of our group quickly shimmy through and enter the ‘Lemon Squeezer,’ one of the more than a dozen caves at the Lost River Gorge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire (www.visitNH.com).
I hesitate. The gap is very narrow. Last night’s dessert comes back to haunt me – after all, it was deep-fried cheesecake. Before last night, I didn’t known such a thing existed. But it does, and now I’m paying the price as I listen to Jeffrey explain how to negotiate through the cave, formerly called Fat Man’s Misery.
“Crawl under the large boulder, go feet-first into a small pit. Go through the gap head first on your left side and crawl along…” – I’ve heard enough and decide to bypass the cave, staying on the trail. Note to self: Never eat a dessert that is deep-fried.
Fortunately, the Lemon Squeezer is the most difficult cave to navigate and the others are more forgiving. For most kids, it’s a breeze and they love playing hide-and-seek in the passageways and crawl spaces among the granite boulders.
“Kids think it’s very cool,” Jeffrey says. Even the story of how the caves were discovered is pretty amazing to them.
They were first documented in a story that has been compared to Alice’s tumble- down-the-rabbit-hole in Alice in Wonderland. In 1852, two brothers, Royal and Lyman Jackman were fishing when Lyman disappeared from sight. He had fallen through a moss-covered hole and dropped 15 feet below into a cave now known as Shadow Cave. Lyman helped him out and the astonished brothers rushed home to recount their extraordinary tale.
The brothers found more and more caves as they continued to explore the region. Later, Royal blazed a trail and started guided tours, believing the city tourists, who in the late 1800/s flocked to the White Mountains, would find these caves as fascinating as he did. Judging by an 1874 New York newspaper article, they certainly did. Georgia Davies poetically describes the spectacle she witnessed:
For one-half mile, the stream plays hide and seek in the dusky chambers and under the piled-up boulders before it leaps out laughing into the air. Into that one-half mile is crowded more beauty, more grandeur and desolation, and wild loveliness than brushes could paint or words could describe if they worked for twenty lifetimes.
Though no longer desolate, the awe factor remains when you descend into the gorge. The first thing you notice is the drop in temperature, which can be as much as 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit as you descend about 3000 vertical feet. You hear the constant sound of rushing water as you follow the trail that takes you to site after site of glacially sculpted caves, potholes, lookout points and waterfalls.
Many of the caves’ names are taken from Norse Mythology including Asgard, Cave of Odin and Thor’s Workshop. Guides used to entertain tourists with tall tales involving the Norse characters. Thor, the god of thunder, and his magic hammer, they said, formed the gorge. The large boulder in front of the waterfall is Thor’s anvil, worn out and pointed after all its hard work.
Other caves are named for their attributes. The Cave of Silence is the only place where the river cannot be heard, but the whoosh of the running water greets you again when you exit the cave. The Giant Pothole at 60 feet high and 28 feet wide is one of the tallest known granite potholes in the U.S. – making the ones that appear every spring on our highways seem rather puny.
The most beautiful cave is undoubtedly the Judgment Hall of Pluto. Climbing down a ladder, you’re greeted with a view of an underground waterfall that cascades from a height of 20-feet.
It’s a thrill to poke and explore these underground treasures and for kids, who are enchanted with secret passageways and mysteries, even more so. I’ll definitely come again, though perhaps next time, I’ll skip the dessert the night before so I can fit through the Lemon Squeezer.
For more on visiting New Hampshire, go to: www.visitNH.com.
Jennifer Merrick is a freelance writer specializing in family travel. She feels blessed to be able to experience new places through the eyes of her two curious and energetic children.