The Rocky Mountain Cave System Context

Hourglass Cave is one of many caves in the limestone and dolomite terrain of the Colorado Rockies.

The rock type that hosts these caves — carbonate rock formed from ancient seafloor sediments — is widespread in the Rockies, and the caves it produces vary enormously in character and extent.

Some Rocky Mountain caves are brief, shallow features — a few feet deep, offering shelter but not darkness.

Others are extensive systems with miles of passage, multiple levels, and the full range of speleothem formations that develop in well-established cave systems.