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.
