City installs Natural Landmark sign from National Park Service

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City staff from Howelsen Hill made it official Wednesday morning with the turning of a few bolts to install the National Park Service metal plaque for the National Natural Landmark in Steamboat Springs.

Sulphur Cave and Spring National Natural Landmark, located just uphill from the snow tubing conveyer at Howelsen Hill Ski Area, was designated in January 2021 by the landmark program administered by the park service. The cave is one of 16 geologically and biologically significant natural landmarks in Colorado. The landmark program, established in 1962, includes 602 diverse sites across the country and U.S. territories.

Gases inside Sulphur Cave are toxic to humans, so cave access is prohibited except for research scientists with a permit and special breathing equipment. According to the park service, the site is the only known example in Colorado of a cave being dissolved solely by sulfuric acid, fed by the geothermally heated water from nearby Sulphur Spring.

The smelly, poisonous cave is home to thin, blood-red worms that may not exist anywhere else in the world, as discovered in 2007 by Dave Steinmann, a biologist and research associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Graduate students from two universities in Georgia have also visited the cave to observe the unique worms as a model to create robotic worm swarms, Steinmann said. The biologist said Thursday the worms he is collecting from the cave are planned for research in antibiotics at a university in France because the worms survive in a “bacterial soup.”

The 180-foot cave underground is part of the two-acre landmark formed by geothermally-heated water flowing through travertine to create a rare ecosystem including lethal hydrogen sulfide, dripping sulfuric acid, rare gypsum crystals and mucus-like hanging snottites.

Natural landmarks are often out-of-the-ordinary sites that draw interest of scientists. In Colorado the landmarks include well-known sites such as Hanging Lake east of Glenwood Springs and Garden of the Gods northwest of Colorado Springs. Lesser recognized National Natural Landmarks in Colorado range from Morrison-Golden Fossil Areas, where explorers have found nine species of dinosaurs in four quarries, to the Lost Creek Scenic Area south of Bailey that includes gorges, ridges, spires, pinnacles and stream channels that alternate between above and below ground.

City staff waited months to officially install the landmark plaque and an updated interpretative sign to make sure they did not damage the natural landmark. In the end, the staff used the existing sign post for a new interpretative sign and attached the national designation plaque to a board rail fence around the cave opening. In the winter, snow fencing is installed to keep skiers at Howelsen Hill from disturbing the site, as the cave is partially underneath a city ski run.

To reach Suzie Romig, call 970-871-4205 or email [email protected].

Aug 3, 2023

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Howelsen Hill employees Kaleb Denny, left, and Micah Ness install the National Natural Landmark plaque at Sulphur Cave and Spring on Wednesday. The plaque is supplied by the National Park Service, which administers the natural landmarks program.Readers around Steamboat and Routt County make the Steamboat Pilot & Today’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.