<body><div>One day In 1968, Jan Knox hooked herself to a rope alongside her husband, Orion Knox, and descended into a dark hole in the ground on the Wuest family ranch in Comal County. A hand-cranked winch operated by the cave owners lowered her down 160 feet through a shaft just 22 inches wide, the rock strata passing close before her face. As her boots hit the slick bottom, the darkness dissipated in the warm glow of her carbide headlamp. In front of her stood cathedral-l­ike pillars and arches of flowstone, colored crystal and delicate formations, and the faint echoing drip of water. It was the first time a human had witnessed the magnificent formation, and the couple was there to map it.Today, this cave is part of the Hidden Wonders tour at Natural Bridge Caverns. Orion and some fellow students at the University of Texas at Austin discovered the cave network under the Wuest Ranch in 1960. It’s unique in that it cuts through two different geological formations—the Glen Rose, which contains the Trinity aquifer, and the Edwards group limestone. “It’s one of the most significant and expansive cave system that’s been explored in Central Texas,” says Marcus Gary, a geologist at UT.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1wMaGm_0vxKfdj900" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1wMaGm_0vxKfdj900" width="508" height="500" ></figure>NATURAL BRIDGE CAVERNS26495 Natural Bridge Caverns Road,San Antonio210-651-6101;Over the course of their friendship and eventual marriage, Jan and Orion, who passed away in late 2022, grew intimately acquainted with Natural Bridge Caverns and many others like them. Jan is one of the first woman geologists to explore and map Texas’ underground wonders, and she remains a living witness to the history of Natural Bridge and other caverns throughout the country.Back in 1965, Jan arrived at UT to study geology, a field that had grown on her over the course of high school. As a woman in the geology program, she was a rarity for the time. There were 30 men and four other women, and only one of those women graduated with her. “I was used to working with men anyway,” she recalls. “When we went out in the field, I was just one of the guys—though they kept an eye on me. It was sort of like having brothers.”Jan and her fellow geology students often spent weekends exploring local Hill Country caves. There were other cavers at the school, too, including one who was something of a celebrity on campus: Orion Knox. In 1960, Orion and his friends Preston Knodell, Al Brandt, and Joe Cantu discovered and explored the network of caverns under the Wuest ranch. Orion soon dropped out of college to help the Wuest family develop the caves into Natural Bridge Caverns, an attraction that remains open to the public. In 1965, he sold his stake in the caves to return to UT and earn an architecture degree.<figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=0U9BtS_0vxKfdj900" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0U9BtS_0vxKfdj900" width="1200" height="798" ><figcaption>Tiffany Hofeldt Jan Knox in Natural Bridge Caverns, which she mapped with her husband.</figcaption></figure>He kept caving in his spare time, which was how he met Jan in 1967. The two took to each other quickly, Jan recalls, going out with other cavers to survey underground chambers and tunnels throughout Texas, measuring direction and slope, mapping the placement of rocks and formations in the dark. That year, Orion took her to Natural Bridge for the first time, leading her into a part of the wild, undeveloped cave called Lucifer’s Entrails: narrow passages caked with “soupy, soupy mud.” If this was a test, Jan passed. Soon, they began surveying and caving together.Their marriage in 1968 coincided with a project Orion had been toying with: a survey of Natural Bridge Caverns that would be significantly more detailed than the rather cursory initial effort. Jan and Orion began resurveying the cave on weekend nights, walking in tight 10-foot circles in the dark, measuring distances and mapping every rock and formation possible. They explored spectacular halls like the Castle of the White Giants and passages that dropped down through the mud toward black underground lakes, and down the exploratory boreholes that led into what would become the Hidden Wonders cave system. One passage in the wild caves, known today as Jan’s Long Crawl, is a 200-foot-long, 11-inch-high tube. The ceiling was too close even to wear a helmet: She had to push it ahead of her as she went, doing her best not to hit her head. For many years, Jan says, she and Orion were “the only ones who’d ever been in it. Nobody else could fit.”Slowly, Orion recorded the survey data on huge, detailed cave maps, the finished versions of which look like intricately scumbled and crosshatched abstract art. Cave maps are a crucial part of the process of commercialization. “You need to know where everything is so you can [develop] with the least impact toward the cave,” Jan says. “To preserve the best views and do the least damage.” The sketching on Orion’s Natural Bridge map was much more detailed than earlier maps of the cavern executed on a huge roll of paper, Jan says. At the 1978 National Speleological Society meeting’s map salon, the couple’s chart of Natural Bridge won first place.The best reward for their efforts was access to places no human eye had ever seen, Jan says. One trip took them into an undiscovered section of Midnight Cave outside of Del Rio. It was a difficult climb in, with a corkscrew twist upward through a tight passage. The path then opened up into a hall full of stalagmites and stalactites, floors of shining flowstone and crystals that gave way to canyons dropping away into the dark. “Nobody’s been in there,” Jan says. “You’re the first one. It’s a real adrenaline rush.”Though their careers led them to travel often, including Orion’s work on the restoration of the Battleship Texas, they stayed connected to Natural Bridge Caverns and the Wuest Family, popping in when they headed down to Orion’s family farm. They’d visit with the Wuests, Jan says, see what was going on, and sometimes do a round of surveying. Over time, they watched as the show cave expanded, culminating in the opening of the Hidden Wonders Tour in 2023—the very cavern that Jan had been winched down into in 1968.The borehole into the cavern is still there, but Jan no longer has to be lowered in through it: She walks in along a concrete walkway, like other eager visitors. There’s no more need for carbide headlamps, either. Bright LED lighting picks out the rich colors of crystal and flowstone, and the intricate, delicate formations of cave bacon and soda straws. “Now you can see so much more,” she says. “It’s really awe-inspiring.“Orion always called it ‘his cave.’ He felt he’d put so much time and love into it. And I felt that, too.”<h2>Go Deeper</h2>Explore the Natural Bridge Caverns areaDiscovery TourThe classic tour regales visitors with massive formations, underground canyons, moodily lit pools, and vast underground halls. It’s the best and easiest way to see the most spectacular parts of the cave. <a href="https://naturalbridgecaverns.com/">naturalbridgecaverns.com</a>Adventure ToursClimb, slip, and slide into the bowels of the cave, through undeveloped passages that haven’t changed since Orion Knox mapped them. All gear is provided on both tours, but prepare to get muddy.Bracken Cave Bat FlightJust down the road from Natural Bridge Caverns lies Bracken Cave, a sinkhole home to the largest colony of Mexican free-tailed bats in the world. Seasonal tours are available to view the nightly exit of millions of bats from the sinkhole. <a href="https://www.batcon.org/">batcon.org</a>Natural Bridge Wildlife RanchThe ranch contains drive-through paddocks full of exotic game and exhibits of animals like cheetahs, rhinos, and giraffes. <a href="https://www.wildliferanchtexas.com/">wildliferanchtexas.com</a></div></body>

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How UT Austin Students Mapped Natural Bridge Caverns

One day In 1968, Jan Knox hooked herself to a rope alongside her husband, Orion Knox, and descended into a dark hole in the ground on the Wuest family ranch in Comal County. A hand-cranked winch operated by the cave owners lowered her down 160 feet through a shaft just 22 inches wide, the rock strata passing close before her face. As her boots hit the slick bottom, the darkness dissipated in the warm glow of her carbide headlamp. In front of her stood cathedral-like pillars and arches of flowstone, colored crystal and delicate formations, and the faint echoing drip of water. It was the first time a human had witnessed the magnificent formation, and the couple was there to map it.

How UT Austin Students Mapped Natural Bridge Caverns

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