Horn Lake Caves

Last weekend I rediscovered Vancouver Island. Aside from a business trip to Victoria a few years ago, I hadn’t been there since I was a kid. Vancouver Island is a hiking, camping and kayaking paradise. It’s full of lakes, coastline and parks. Last weekend my eco adventure began under ground at Horn Lake.



Horn Lake caves are well worth visiting. They are a series of caves carved out of the limestone from erosion. I took the basic tour of Riverbend cave yet there is so much more to see. You can even repel down to an underground waterfall. I’m definitely going back for that.



There wasn’t a lot of stalactites and stalagmites but there was a lot of interesting formations of calcite which is what stalactites are made of. One calcite formation even looked like Buddha.



The cool thing about caving is that there is no natural light. You obviously have to go in with a flashlight or a headlamp. At one point in the tour we all turned are headlamps of and were quiet. The silence and darkness was amazing. They have quite a few arbutus trees in the park. These two were on either side of the road. The only other place I’ve seen arbutus tress is Whitecliff park outside of Horseshoe bay.