Hello! I realized I haven’t actually written about seeing Howe’s Cavern in New York and since the pictures were pretty cool, wanted to post about it. The Husband and I went to Howe’s for the start of our East Coast Trip in 2022. I had miscalculated the driving hours, so we ended up doing a 10 hour day and then going to the cavern tour when we got up. It was a pretty neat way to start the day though, I will say! Here’s a picture of the fog over the mountains that we woke up to.
The caverns are located in the Schoharie Valley region and was called “Otsgaragee” or “Cave of the Great Galleries” or “Great Valley Cave” by the Native Americans in the area. It’s not known how far into the caves the Native Americans had explored. The first white person who is reported to have found the cave entrance was around 1770, but not much is known other than that. Supposedly he was a peddler who was hiding from an attack in the entrance of the cave.
Lester Howe, a local farmer and his family, settled land across from the hidden cave entrance in the 1880’s and reportedly rediscovered the cave, by following his cows on a hot day to find cool air blowing from a cleft in the rocks on his neighbor’s property. He eventually bought the property from his neighbor and began to offer tours of the caves. The Howe’s Cavern website has some more information on the history and timelines for the cave, if you’d be interested to learn more. https://howecaverns.com/
Here are some pictures from the cave. The tour included a boat ride, but that was mostly in the dark, so there are no pictures from that. We liked our tour guide, she was pretty funny. The cave itself was pretty chilly and slippery in some parts, as you might expect. It wasn’t a hard walk though. There were some tight spaces, but overall we we impressed. It’s amazing to think of the work that was done with more primitive mining tools and safety precautions that we take now.
It was really interesting to see the colors from the different minerals on the wall and the shapes of natural erosion.
This rock formation was called “Pagoda Rock. It was in a deeper part of the cavern off the path.
We took a picture in front of the heart rock and alter area. You can get married in Howe’s Caverns, although would need to be a very small wedding! The superstition is that if couple’s kiss on the quartz heart rock, they’ll stay together for 10 more years of bliss. Since it had just been our 10 year anniversary, we definitely kissed on the heart.
I hope you enjoyed seeing some pictures from Howe’s Caverns. I am hoping to get caught up sharing our adventures from last year. We had a lot of fun on our East Coast trip and I think I’ve only shown part of it. Last year was a tough year and I’m just starting to recover from it now. I’m determined to showcase the good things from it though, not just dwell on the negatives. So stay tuned for more vacation pictures!
