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1999

Silver Fox was discovered in 1991 by miners following a seam of coal. They broke through the top of a large, heavily decorated chamber, which is now the end of the cave portion of the tour. The entrance to the cave is a low, roughly rectangular tunnel blasted through the rock. A strong rush of cool air blew out the mouth of this tunnel, giving welcome relief while we waited in the hot smog outside. Apparently the guide wanted to have more people in the tour group, but she eventually took just four of us in.

Mr. Wang and Joan's Mom had decided to wait outside, so the other two were a young couple, seriously overdressed for even a show cave. The lady wore a long dress and platform shoes, while her companion had on a sport shirt and slacks with good shoes. That’s about as dressed up as anybody gets in Beijing. The four of us preceded our guide down the sloping tunnel, negotiating a long series of steps deep into the mountain. The railings here were not as fancy as those in Stone Flower, being mostly welded (and bent) pipe. The management of Silver Fox does appear to be much more serious about protecting its formations, however. Until the final chamber, all of the delicate stuff is separated from the humans by either wire cloth or plastic netting. Passages in the earlier parts of the tour are tall enough to walk through upright, but relatively narrow and convoluted. Formations in those portions are much less plentiful, and smaller in scale, than what we saw in Stone Flower, but are lit with regular floodlights, so we actually could see them.

The cave takes its name from a pure white, two-meter long crystalline formation some distance into the cave. When we eventually reached this landmark, it was walled off from us by sheets of somewhat scratched six-millimeter Plexiglas. A cave employee sat on the other side of the window, illuminating the formation for us with a flashlight. The “fox” hangs from the ceiling, and is covered with fine needles resembling fur or hoarfrost. Very impressive. I can see it being a fox’s tail, but the rest of the resemblance escaped me. I guess in the world of tourist caves, some things are universal. Also in this part of the tour, our guide pointed out a small formation floodlit so that its shadow on the flowstone behind it was the silhouette of none other than Mao Zhe Dong! And yes, there were formations called the Pagoda and the Great Wall.

After viewing the Silver Fox, we continued downward until we reached the other big attraction, which is…a boat ride! This is not your Howe Caverns or Penn’s Cave (nor Alexander’s, for that matter) type of boat ride. The passage is narrow; I could have touched both walls at once in most places. That would not have been wise, however. The narrow boats are of steel, and are propelled by the driver’s pulling on a heavy steel cable anchored to the ceiling. He did this pulling with a great deal of enthusiasm, and the boat was constantly bouncing off of one wall or the other. Apparently the theory is that visitors want an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom kind of experience. Very noisy, and not conducive to observing the sights. The ride is interrupted about a third of the way through by an artificial-looking dam. This requires transferring to another boat at a lower level. It’s sort of what the Secret Caverns folks might do if they decided they had to have a boat ride to go with their waterfall. All in all, the ride (which costs extra) is not worth it. While we were at the landing, a cave employee offered to sell us bottles of water taken from the stream passage. We declined, even though the brochure sold on the surface claims that the water is "…capable of producing curing effect on such disease as arthritis, rheumarthritis, diabetes and neuralgia."

When we had recovered from the boat, we rejoined the rest of our group; the other couple had wisely chosen to pass on the thrills. The route winds through some interesting narrow passages before entering the large chamber which was the original discovery. This room is about ten to fifteen meters high, twenty wide, and maybe forty long. It is heavily decorated in the manner of Stone Flower, but also has lots of helictites on the ceiling and walls. The guide and other visitors waited patiently while I exposed a lot of film in this area, then we started climbing stairs through another mine tunnel to return to the surface. We had spent about an hour and a half in the cave.

Silver Fox and Stone Flower are two impressive caves; very worthwhile visiting. From the look of the surface terrain, I’d bet that the area is riddled with underground passage.

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All images copyright © 1999 Dan Hoyt