A Natural Wonder Glows Up

A Dazzling New Tour Experience at Shasta Caverns…

Northern California’s jewel of an attraction, Lake Shasta Caverns, relaunched its tours with improved speleothem lighting, providing an entirely new and enhanced experience for visitors. They replaced 180 old traditional lightbulbs with more than 1,000 LED lights known as “luminaries,” cutting power usage by 80 percent and illuminating parts of the caverns never seen before. While becoming a designated National Natural Landmark in 2012 is a huge accomplishment (as it shows their protection and stewardship of the land), this is Lake Shasta Caverns’ largest capital improvement project to date.

On a sunny, warm and calm Northern California day, Lake Shasta Caverns General Manager Matt Doyle and Jessica Doyle climb aboard the patio boat from the bottom of Shasta Caverns Road to go across the lake to caves. On the ride over, Matt explains that the previous lighting system was nearing the end of its lifespan, and it was time for a major upgrade. In working with Cave Lighting (a company headquartered in Germany run by a bunch of world-class spelunkers), the newly installed Luminaries are not only more efficient in leading a tour and decreasing power consumption, but are reinstating the natural environment – helping the bat habitat and stopping the invasive growth of lampenflora. This moss grows on the cave formations when given the unnatural heat and light sources provided by the outdated incandescent bulbs.
A small control room outside of the caverns has a box which acts as a fiber optic backbone of the caves that is VoIP-activated with real-time security cameras.

“We will know immediately if there’s an emergency. It adds security and safety, a huge improvement from the 1964 switches to this touchscreen,” he says. It has 1.5 hours of trail lights inside in case the power goes out and uses a fraction of the electricity.

Lake Shasta Caverns has two generators; they can run one at a time on 1,500 watts (compared to the 7,000-watt previous system), but only use about 500-600 watts on any given day. The caverns use about as much power each day as a slow cooker. They are the second in the United States to upgrade their lighting to this level (behind Natural Bridge Caverns in San Antonio), but the caves are impressively preserved. They opened in 1964, and you can still see fossils embedded in the rocks outside the entrance left over from thousands of years ago.

Inside the naturally air-conditioned caverns, subtle light guides the well-built walkways. Tour guides can now turn certain lights on and off whenever they want, so all of them don’t stay on all the time like before.
“It helps guide the tour as we can focus on certain features,” Matt explains. Improving the lighting helps create a more immersive experience – drawing attention to the depth and dimension of specific features.
Matt points out the soda straws, elephant’s trunk, stalactites, stalagmites and cave bacon, illuminating it with a remote control as the rest of the cave stays dark. Drawing attention to the depth and shadows has allowed guides to notice new things growing inside the cave, such as the white mineral deposits – the more natural state of the formations helping the lampenflora recede.

“The lighting helps enhance the natural colors of the cave, helps the white pop,” Matt says. He points out the flow stone, deflected stalagmites, the small vessels growing every which way in the rock.
“That’s why I say this cave is alive,” Jessica adds.

Matt points out the rimstone dams, cave pearls, and different accents in the room making the cave seem bigger than it is as they walk by dogtooth spurs, cave popcorn and cave coral.

“I never saw this ceiling before,” Matt says as they walk into The Crystal Room. “There’s so much going on; it’s extremely unique in each level you go up, you see a different cave.” Now with the enhanced lighting system, each visit is like unlocking a new treasure. “Where water flows, crystals grow,” he adds.

The Basement Room is originally the lowest point in the caverns, and it sounds different. They walk by an inscription from J.A. Richardson, the guy who first came into the cave on November 11, 1878, and the Odd Fellows chimney.

Then comes the grand finale – the Cathedral Room. Sitting on bleacher seats looking out into the dimmed rough rock wall with a 180-foot ceiling, the room goes dark and completely silent before multi-colored LEDs and choreographed music fill the room. The cave formation that looks like a pipe organ now sounds like a pipe organ. The light bounces along with the dramatic music in an awe-inspiring display. It’s common to hear cheers after the show, and every visit to the caverns is a one-of-a-kind experience. •

Lake Shasta Caverns
www.lakeshastacaverns.com