Spanish Cave of Marble Mountain

Marble Mountain Limestone Formation	Panorama from the Spanish Cave	Cave close-up	Into the cave

There are at least 11 caves in the Marble Mountain. Most of them are located in the limestone rock formation shown on the left photo above. Geology and general information about the caves is well described  on Wayne Anderson web site, so it won't be repeated here. The purpose of this page is to give better directions, so you don't have to wonder around in a very steep terrain in vain. When you climb up the Marble Mountaiun trail (almost not maintained, so lots of dead trees block it) above the tree line you will see the area depicted on the left photo: click on the thumbnail to enlarge and spot the arrow poining to the cave site - it's on the right side of the Spanish Gully. The middle-left photo shows the panorama made near the cave entrance, from GPS coordinates: 37° 57.134 N and 105° 31.224 W at elevation 11,650". It seems like the entrance of the cave used to be sealed, but now you can see only some rusted bolts in the rock.  The photo was made on July 4th, 2013, and you can see that snow is blocking the entrance almost entirely. We could not spot the Maltan cross above the cave as described on some other web sites, however, Mr. Nathan Jones pointed out this cross to me, as you can see on the insert of the Panorama photo. Better visible was a red number "6" painted on two spots - see the enlargement of the "Cave close-up" photo. A 3D (cross eye) photo of the cave close to the entrance is on the right.

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