It's the longest cave in the state and it's right here in Western Wisconsin. Every year thousands of people from around the world journey beneath Pierce County.

In this week's Wandering Wisconsin, we're off to Spring Valley for a private tour of Crystal Cave.

Jean Cunningham, the owner says, "one thing we hear from people is that it's so large. Second is that it's a "cavey" cave. You feel like you're in a cave when you're inside. We're down 70 feet.

It takes an hour to go through and you'll travel 1/3 mile. Guides will talk about the history: the cave was discovered in 1881 by local farm boys. They found a sinkhole and probed and found it went a long way. They went back with ropes and found the 1st and 2nd levels. In 1941, Henry Friede from Eau Claire purchased it to make it a tourist attraction.

They'll also talk about the geological history-- how the formations formed and about the bats.

Some highlights are the cave formations. Spelethems, stalagmites which might reach the ceiling. The room in here was filled with mud and silt. Henry and Mary felt the formations looked like crystals at the end with drops of water and that's where the name came from.

We purchased it in '86. We see 32,000 to 35,000 people a year. 12,000 school kids. They enjoy the bats, learn a lot about the bats. There's four kinds that hibernate here. The most common is the little brown. We count them.

There's thousands of feet not accessible to the public. We started discovering it in 1992. One weekend Blaze, my husband, was doing some digging and broke through and found a major portion.
It has a lot of mud. You have to crawl on bellies, but get very dirty.

Crystal Cave is open daily from 9:30 to 5:30 until Labor Day. Then the hours change for fall. For more information, click here.