Florida Caverns State Park

Last week, Cleo and I had an extraordinary camping experience at Florida Caverns State Park. We enjoyed making new friends with fellow Floridians from St. Petersburg and Miami. Cleo even made a doggie friend named Yoshi. One of the highlights was the VIP flashlight Cavern tour, where I wandered with a few other guests through eight cave rooms adorned with stunning karst formations. More on that later.

The Experience

The camp hosts were accommodating and friendly. Alan organized a delightful community-wide campfire and provided support as we prepared for an overnight storm. The bathrooms were not only attractive but also impeccably clean and well-maintained.

Spanning 1,500 acres, the park boasts 32 well-spaced campsites with electric and water hookups for RVs and tents. Additionally, three RV/trailer equestrian sites and three primitive-use sites offer more solitude set away from the family campground. Cleo particularly enjoyed the easy early morning and late evening walks on the trails between our campsite and the Blue Hole day-use area.

Location & Reservations

Situated in Marianna, Florida Caverns State Park is 335 miles northwest of Tampa, 68 miles (about an hour’s drive) west of Tallahassee, and 136 miles (approximately two hours’ drive) east of Pensacola. Reservations can be made up to 11 months in advance through the Florida State Parks reservations website or by calling 800-326-3521.

Fun Facts

• Florida Caverns State Park is the only park in the state offering interpretive cave tours.
• When the park opened in 1942, visitors paid a mere $.72 per person for an admission ticket.
• The park is one of nine new deal area parks constructed by Civilian Conservation Corp. (CCC) workers, who earned $1 a day.
• The park safeguards sensitive Native American cultural sites along the Chipola River.
• While waiting for a cave tour at the Visitors Center, see how many fossils you can find embedded in the limestone blocks of the center.
• Behind the Family Campground restroom is a bat house, where campers gather at dusk to watch the bats fly out.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Worker Statue is located in front of the Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna, Florida. The statue honors the CCC workers who helped build the park during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The statue commemorates the hard work of those who built much of the area’s Tunnel Cave.

Caverns

Legends passed down from Jackson County families tell tales of how Native Americans once used the caves 60 feet below to escape capture during the Seminole Wars. Tours take about 45 minutes to walk through the narrow passages connecting eight “rooms” within about a mile. The entire cave system extends 10 acres. Guests on the daytime public tour will see the dramatic karst formations lit up with multi-color lights. I signed up for the “Flashlight VIP Tour” offered at night. The guide turned off all the lights and we explored the cave rooms with only our flashlights.

The dramatic karst features, including formations that look like ribbons, draperies, and soda straws, were created over tens of thousands of years when surface water seeped through the limestone rock, dissolving the calcium. Water containing dissolved calcium dripping through cracks in the ceiling formed stalactites. The water containing calcium that dripped from stalactites formed stalagmites up from the cavern floor. Columns formed when stalactites and stalagmites met and fused together. The temperature in the cave stays a consistent 65 degrees all year.

Guided cavern tours are offered seven days a week from Memorial Day (the end of May) to Labor Day (September). Off-season cavern tours, from Labor Day to Memorial Day, are offered five days a week, Thursday through Monday.

Park Activities
The park offers many opportunities for engaging with the outdoors. Bird watching, swimming in the Blue Hole Spring, bicycling or horseback riding along the multi-use trails, fishing from the banks of the beautiful Chipola River, and Geo-Seeking are a few. Kayaks and canoes are available for rent to explore the river.

Civil Rights: Separate but Equal
In a letter dated March 25, 1943, Florida Caverns Superintendent Clarence Simpson observed the changing demographic of visitors and agreed that “they [African-Americans] should be given the same service that we accord to anyone else” but warned that it would be “a grave mistake [to] allow them to use the same rest room.” Segregated bathroom facilities were eventually built for black patrons, and segregation persisted at all of Florida’s state parks until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 effectively outlawed the practice. (source: Florida Memory State Library)

A Cavern Poem
I haven't written poetry since my college days. Curious about the use of AI for creative work, I decided to dip my toe into it, entering some key words into an AI app for a poem about the caverns. Once I started working with the AI poem it became clear that AI had misused words for the sake of rhyme. And the poem was a bit shallow for my taste. I enjoyed reworking it to write a poem that reflects my sensibility - less rhyme, more suggestive of deeper truths. Hope you, dear reader, enjoy it. 

Pocketing Secrets

Awaiting the April solar eclipse
Today, in March, I discover 
Eight hidden rooms 60 feet below
karst terrain of the Marianna Lowlands
where time stands still. 

Stalactites glisten and drip
As stalagmites rise like pillars of love
Flowstone gently guides me,
through narrow passages
a seeker in the darkness. 

Blind cave crayfish float 
in puddles at my feet from far below  
tiny secrets rising from shadows deep
and above, roosting bats  
echoes of a mystical past. 

In the darkness, 
wandering through cave ruins,
guided by divine fate
I'm a witness to ancient times, 
pocketing secrets to keep.

It was a memorable and fulfilling experience, and we can’t wait to return to this gem of a park.