Crawl Through a Cave

This is a 360 video of a cave within the Maquoketa Caves system of connected caves at Maquoketa Caves State Park. ¹With more caves than any state park, Maquoketa Caves is one of Iowa’s most unique outdoor attractions. As one of the state’s earliest state parks, Maquoketa Caves has been a popular destination for picnickers and hikers since the 1860s.

Let’s take a closer look at this cave. This 360 is made from three images. After moving the arrows in the first section of the video to get our bearings, we will follow the explorer’s path without moving the arrows to see around us.

00:00-00:11

We are starting our walk into the cave. It is so dark that we can’t see anything in front or beside us. The only light we see is coming from the opening of the cave that is behind us. At the top of the video it says, “Maquoketa Caves State Park Crawl Through a Cave 360”. As we move away from the opening it gets smaller and smaller like the closing of an eyelid.

1. Clicks 1-7. As we turn around, we see the light of our flashlight reflecting off the back of the side of the cave wall. The wall in front of us appears to be smooth, but it’s hard to tell because it’s all blurry. There are recesses on each side of the light, like the eyes of a great monster staring back at you.
2. Clicks 8-16. We are back where we started. We can see the opening of the cave behind us. We walk on into the cave.

00:13

We stop and look around. As we turn to the right, the cave wall goes from pitch black to lighter and lighter gray until we can see the side of the cave wall with our flashlight. The flashlight projects onto the gray cave wall and we see two cereal bowl sized craters in the side of the cave almost as if the water has sat here for a long time to erode that section of the wall. As we walk forward, we realize that the cereal bowl sized craters are the opening to the next section of the cave. We travel down into the cave, watching the cave walls change in color from smooth, solid, light gray to gray with sparkling dust like a porcelain tea cup was smashed on the rock and the shards were left to glisten in the light. As we walk, we realize that there is a pool of brown, murky water below us as we step down into the water.

00:13-00:27

We walk further into the cave. The cave walls alternate from smooth, light gray to gray with sparkling porcelain shards. We can see the bumpy texture of the walls as we walk. As we move, sections of the cave open a bit to let us pass and then close down around us, like we are inside an accordion, and it is being pushed in and pulled out as we move.

00:27-01:00

As we have moved through the cave, we have gone further and further into the ground, and now we’ve reached a section of the cave where we need to step carefully with our hands out to each side of the cave wall so as not to fall, we have a few steps to take.

01:00-01:14

Watch your head. Don’t hit the ceiling. As we go down into the cave, we look up and see a slight opening at the top of the cave. As we work our way down, look out and watch your step. The turn we are making as we walk looks like a slide at a waterpark. The sides of the cave look shiny with water.

01:14-01:55

As we move, we see on our right a closer image of the gray rock with porcelain shards. At closer inspection of this section of the rock, we see deep pockets and Maquoketa Caves like a brownie pan after the air bubbles have popped while the pan is cooling. To our far left, we see another pool of murky, brown water. To our center left, we see an opening in the cave that might be another place to explore.

01:55-2:28

We go to explore the center left cave, and realize that it is not a passageway and need to back out a bit, thinking that we need to back track our steps. We do that and realize that we can go forward. We move back to the murky brown water on the far left and lean over the edge. We can look down into the murky water, but we can also see natural light and a new opening of the cave just past the murky water.

¹“Maquoketa Caves State Park.”Iowa Department of Natural Resources, https://www.iowadnr.gov/Places-to-Go/State-Parks/Iowa-State-Parks/Maquoketa-Caves-State-Park. 2023 Mar. 23.