The official website:
On our visit to the caverns, we took two guided tours: Kings
Palace, and Lower Cave.
We were there on a weekday, and these were the only ones offered. We also
did a self guided tour of the Big
Room in between the two tours.
The links I have provided on each of these tours is back to the park's
web site.
We did not have time to walk down to these parts of the caverns by the
Natural
Entrance, so we took the elevators down. On our next visit, I hope
to do this route. The natural entrance is shown here:
Our first tour was the Kings Palace. This part of the caverns is now only available by guided tours. It used to be on the self guided part, but there was too much damage to the formations, so it was taken off. This tour has various types of lighting installed, so I was able to take my camera and get a number of pictures, some with flash, and some on the tripod and using the park's lights. The colors will be off due to the temperature of the lights.
In the middle of the tour, when we were well away from the elevators, they turned off the lights. There was to our eyes total darkness.
After the Kings Palace tour, we had some time before lunch, so we went through the Great Room. This route was also lit and I took additional pictures.
Here are some of the pictures:
Finally, my favorite photo:
After lunch we went on a long tour of the lower cave. On this tour,
I did not take my camera, but we did have Dave's recyclable, and when those
pictures are developed, I will post them. This tour has a start point which
we had to agree not to publish, so if you want to go, you will have to
do as we did. We needed 4 AA batteries, and the park supplied head lamps.
We quickly left the lit regions of the caverns and went into total darkness.
The route was not too strenuous. The most difficult part was keeping to
narrow paths laid out to minimize damage to the cavern. At the halfway
point, we turned off our lamps and just sat for a while talking. I estimate
we had the lamps off for 5 minutes before one of the others on the tour
asked that they be turned back on.