Discover underground treasures at Maribel Caves
When a tornado tore through Cherney Maribel Caves County Park near Manitowoc on Aug. 6, 2013, it took with it more than 75% of the trees on the 75-acre property — some more than a century old.
While the damage was devastating — the park spent nearly a year cleaning up before reopening in June 2014 — one of the park’s treasures was thankfully spared: a handful of caves tucked safely beneath the surface of a 50-foot limestone bluff.
The bluff is part of the Niagara Escarpment, a rocky shelf that runs from New York to Wisconsin. Ice, water, erosion and the glaciers have picked away at the escarpment, leaving behind caves at Maribel ranging from small pockets in the rocky wall to the 750-foot New Hope Cave, the park’s largest discovered cave, and growing still.
While it did not become a county park (Manitowoc County’s first) until 1963, the area has drawn tourists for more than a century. A photograph on a sign near the parking lot shows visitors gathering around Tartarus Cave in 1905 and notes newspaper articles from the 1890s tell of people coming “to take in the grandeur of the cave scenery and its surroundings.”
Screams filled the air around the caves on a recent sunny weekday as Mike Sobush, a volunteer with the Wisconsin Speleological Society, led a group of about a dozen Girl Scouts from Manitowoc on a lengthy tour of the park and its caves.
I’d normally take screams coming from the depths of a dark cave as a bad thing, but in this case, they were ones of giddy, unadulterated joy as the third- through seventh-graders crawled, shimmied and slopped through narrow passages along the blocky, limestone bluff.
“Of all the tours I’ve done, I’ve never lost anybody yet,” Sobush, 74, joked. He has been volunteering with the Speleological Society at the park since 2005, a year after he retired.
Pat Koppa, one of the Girl Scout leaders, said she had brought her own daughters (now grown) to Maribel when they were younger. Now that the caves are more developed, she thought it would be nice to bring her troop there “to do something local.”
“As they’ve reopened (after the tornado) there’s been a lot of interest,” said Koppa, who volunteers as a troop leader. “I love it and the kids help me feel young.”
Sobush began the tour with a walk down an overgrown gravel road that used to lead to a campground at the park, pointing out an eagle nest that has appeared since the tornado. The newly opened landscape along the West Twin River is now prime hunting territory for the raptors.
From there the group turned off onto a trail leading to a sinkhole, covered by a locked metal door.
Sinkholes usually lead to caves, Sobush told the group, explaining that the whole area is karst — a Swiss cheese-like landscape of underground drainage networks, caves and sinkholes. Sobush said the Wisconsin Speleological Society thinks there are more yet-tobe discovered caves at Maribel, including a large one under the playground area.
Then it was down to the base of the 50-foot limestone bluff, where a few caves are open to the public during park hours, and others are open only during private tours like this one and public tours on the third Sunday of the month from April through September and the second Sunday of October.
Eight acres encompassing the bluff were designated a state natural area in 1967. The area is home to endangered plant species and some rare snails. Because of the natural area status, cavers must adhere to strict excavation guidelines.
In 2012, cavers discovered two of the caves — Split Rock and Tartarus — were actually one. With the glacial debris removed, it’s possible to crawl through from one to the other, now collectively called the Tartarus Cave System.
Most of Tartarus is closed to the public except during tours, for both the safety of visitors and the caves. Sobush said that four, 4.5-inch stalactites in the caves were broken and stolen within a few weeks of being discovered. Stalactites grow at a rate of about 1 inch every 100 years.
Vandalism “has been a very bad problem in the park for quite a few years,” Sobush said. Signs near New Hope Cave ask visitors to report vandals.
But the Girl Scouts could still explore about 50 feet into Tartarus, plus a small tunnel segment.
From there it was on to Coopers and Pancake caves — both open to the public during park hours — and to an overlook of the cool spring that flows from the park’s largest and newest cave, New Hope.
On Feb. 5, 1984, cavers noticed steam coming out of a pile of rocks near the cliff base. They removed some of the rocks and discovered an apple-sized cave opening. On Oct. 31, 1990, cavers broke through into the cave’s first room, which they dubbed the Halloween Room for both the date and the bats they found inside.
Members of the Wisconsin Speleological Society are still carefully excavating New Hope, which currently features 750 feet of passages navigable by foot and hands-and-knees. The cave is open to the public only on tours.
The Girl Scout group followed a narrow passageway illuminated by rope lights to the Halloween Room, where Sobush explained how the cave had been completely filled with glacial debris before cavers began excavations.
“Nobody was in here until we started digging out,” he said. Cavers did find a nearly 6,000-year-old bone from a small mammal, however.
The girls scurried in and out of passageways, touching the muddy walls and stepping over hoses — it can take two days to pump water from the spring out of the cave, Sobush said.
“This is what you call nature’s air conditioning. It’s 45, 46 degrees yearround,” Sobush said as we made our way back out to daylight.
“This is the biggest, best and mightiest cave in the world!” one of the Scouts shouted up ahead, in typical childlike exuberance.
But the caves’ magical draw extends beyond kids, as evidenced by the adult volunteers like Sobush who devote countless hours to leading tours, cleaning up the park and expanding the caves.
“Like (Wisconsin Speleological Society chairman) Kasey Fiske says, it’s the last unknown,” Sobush said. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
On the day I visited, even parks director Gary Robinson was helping out, maneuvering a skid loader to move dirt for a new picnic shelter and restrooms.
“Everybody’s chipping in and helping out. It’s coming together,” Robinson said.
Before their tour, the Girl Scouts had helped clean up downed trees and brush.
And as the debris is slowly removed and new park structures take shape, the park’s aboveground treasures are once again beginning to match what lies beneath.
“Probably 80% of the people in Manitowoc County don’t know what they have here,” Sobush said. “It’s a little jewel.”
While you’re there: Adjacent to the park are the ruins of the Maribel Caves Hotel. Built in 1900, the hotel boasted cold- and hotwater baths and a springwater bottling plant and reportedly played host to infamous guests including John Dillinger. The hotel burned in 1985, and the 2013 storm took out most of what was left, leaving an eerie set of crumbling stone ruins. Stories about the property being haunted abound.
The ruins are on private property, but they’re visible from the edge of the park and from N. Packer Drive outside the park.
More information: Coopers Cave, Pancake Cave and part of the Tartarus Cave System are open to the public during normal park hours, 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 1 through Oct. 31.
New Hope Cave (and sometimes Tartarus Cave) are open during free public tours from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Aug. 16, Sept. 20 and Oct. 11. Bring a flashlight and wear clothes you don’t mind getting dirty. The caves are closed in the winter to protect hibernating bats.
Wisconsin Speleological Society members sell New Hope Cave patches during tour hours for $5 to raise money for the park.
Volunteers like Sobush also lead private tours for groups of 10 or more. A donation of $3 per person is suggested for private tours.
The Wisconsin Speleological Society hosts its annual Hodag Hunt Festival Sept. 11-13. The festival is open to anyone interested in caving and includes cave trips, nature hikes, games and a hunt for a hodag in one of the caves in the area. Devils River Campground, 16612 County Road R, Maribel, serves as festival headquarters.
For more information on the Hodag Hunt and Maribel Caves tours, see maribelcaves.com.
Getting there: Cherney Maribel Caves County Park is on County Highway R in Cooperstown, about 95 miles north of Milwaukee via I-43, state Highway 147 and N. Packer Drive.
Day Out features day trips within a two-hour drive of the Milwaukee area.