CAMDENTON, Mo. — Students and staff with USD 257’s SAFE BASE summer program traded classrooms for cave passages Thursday as they traveled to Bridal Cave at Lake of the Ozarks for a day of exploration, science and adventure.
The group toured the popular Missouri cave system, navigating narrow passageways, steep steps and low ceilings while learning about the geology and history hidden beneath the surface.
As students entered the cave, they quickly noticed the cooler conditions underground. Water dripped from above in several areas.
The cave’s tight passages became part of the adventure. Students squeezed through narrow openings, following guides and staff members.
Once inside, tour guide Ed Oldham welcomed the visitors and introduced them to the cave’s formations and rules about not touching them. “The oil in our hands, when it gets on the formations, it changes the path of the water and it changes the formation,” he explained.
Using a nearby formation as an example, Oldham showed students dark areas caused by oils left behind from years of human contact.
The tour then shifted to the science behind Bridal Cave. Students learned that the cave walls are composed of dolomite and that water carrying calcite crystals has slowly built the formations seen throughout the cavern.
Students looked overhead at delicate soda straw formations hanging from the ceiling. Cave soda straws, or tubular stalactites, are delicate and hollow mineral tubes. Oldham explained that the tubes can eventually fill in and become solid formations.
“They grow about an inch every 100 years,” he said.
Some of the soda straws visible in the cave are approximately 1,000 years old, while the cave itself and many of its formations are estimated to be more than a million years old. The cave was made an official show cave more recently, however, in 1948.
THROUGHOUT the tour, students asked questions and compared formations to familiar objects. Some pointed out rock formations that looked like wood, while others wondered how columns are formed.
At one point, students gathered around the largest column in Missouri, known as “Stairway to the Stars.”
Oldham explained the process behind its formation.
“We have a stalactite and a stalagmite,” he said. “The stalactites are on the ceiling. The stalagmites are on the floor. When they grow together, they make a column.”
Nearby, students also learned about the cave’s wishing well, where donations help fund scholarships. “This is a college scholarship for kids like you,” Oldham told the children. “When you get older, you might get a scholarship from here.”
Another stop brought the group to the Garden of the Gods room, home to several notable formations, including one known as the Guardian Angel. There, students gained a better understanding of just how slowly cave formations develop.
