Over the last couple of months, I have written about 5 different amazing caves that we have visited. Over the years we have visited several more caves, but there are no pictures from them. I'd like to share some memories from some of them as a last post (for now) in this short series covering our cave explorations.
My kids are starting their cave explorations a lot younger then I did.
My first major cave experience I had long before I met my wife. I was not yet a teenager and was on vacation with my family on the beautiful Swedish island of Gotland. This is a large island with an interesting and important history off the east coast of southern Sweden. There are many things to see on this island and among them is Lummelunda Cave, one of Swedens longest caves. The entrance to the cave has been known for a long time but the main part of it was discovered by 3 boys in the 1940s–50s. Parts of the cave have since then been made accessible to the public. I remember the exciting feeling of going down into the cave and being amazed by the cave formations.
Lummelunda Cave. Photo by Helen Simonsson / CC BY 2.0
The next cave I can remember was quite different but in many ways more exciting to explore. When I was a kid my family would sometimes in the summer load up the car and go on a tent camping trip. We would often on these trips pass the Skule mountain about 200 miles south of where I grew up. I don't think we ever passed it without climbing the steep pass to the top of the mountain. There is a small cave part of the way up but it's neither big nor exciting. The cave I'm thinking about is about an hour north and one summer we stopped there first. This Cave, Skallebergsgrottan, found, explored and made accessible by one man. Gustav Sjögren dedicated a large portion of his life to these caves and singlehandedly built ladders and strung ropes to guide people through the cave.
A map of the caves in Skalleberget.
As you can see from the picture above this is not a very large cave system, but it still is one of the longest caves in Sweden. To visit this cave we had to bring our own lights, all that was there were the ladders and two different color ropes to guide your way through the cave on two different paths. I remember that there were two poles outside the entrance to the cave with a sign stating that you should not follow the red rope unless you could easily walk between.
Crawling through this cave is one of my favorite childhood vacation memories. Skallebergsgrottan holds a special place among all caves I have visited and I have been back several times since that first time as a child.
There have been several more caves but as I said there are no pictures from those visits. I would not call myself a spelunker (one who makes a hobby of exploring and studying caves) but I do enjoy visiting and exploring. I will end the cave-series here, atleast untill we find ourselves visiting a new cave.
as we travel and roadschool our kids around the USA.
If you like this post please consider upvoting, following and resteeming!