{"id":2488293,"date":"2023-12-13T19:00:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T02:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/glenwood-caverns-iron-mountain-hot-springs-designated-as-natural-landmark\/"},"modified":"2023-12-13T19:00:30","modified_gmt":"2023-12-14T02:00:30","slug":"glenwood-caverns-iron-mountain-hot-springs-designated-as-natural-landmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/glenwood-caverns-iron-mountain-hot-springs-designated-as-natural-landmark\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenwood Caverns, Iron Mountain Hot Springs designated as natural landmark"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Glenwood Caverns and Iron Mountain Hot Springs have together been designated as a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, a Wednesday news release states.<\/p>\n

The region\u2019s iconic fixtures are owned by Steven and Jeanne Beckley.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGlenwood\u2019s caverns and hot springs are iconic Colorado treasures,\u201d U.S. Senator Michael Bennet said in the release. \u201cI am pleased to see them recognized by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland as a National Natural Landmark and appreciate the Beckleys\u2019 ongoing efforts to preserve these valuable resources for future generations.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The designation,\u00a0announced on Dec. 13<\/a>, cited the millions of years of geologic history in the location and the unique cave ecosystems that are present, according to the announcement from Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park and Iron Mountain Hot Springs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re super excited, it\u2019s been a lot of years in the making,\u201d Steven Beckley told the Post Independent. \u201cIt\u2019s quite the honor. It\u2019s amazing that they took this geologic wonder of the hot springs and the caverns and how they were all formed and the unique life forms that are in it and identified it as a very special place.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Beckleys first purchased the property in 1999 after 16 years of trying to buy it from its previous owners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would we go through all this trouble to get this designation if it doesn\u2019t mean anything? But, it just means a lot for us because when I first fell in love with the cave, I started trying to do something,\u201d Steven said. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone to great lengths to make sure we\u2019re protecting that cave and being stewards. We put in airtight doors, and we\u2019ve monitored the humidity and the temperature in the cave for the last 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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View of King\u2019s Row Caverns in the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park.
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Courtesy of Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

For the Beckleys, applying for the designation was the next step in their conservation efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that they\u2019d done some cases in the past, so we put an application in,\u201d Steven said. \u201cWe applied because we knew it was a special place, and we thought it should be registered nationally for its uniqueness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The National Natural Landmarks (NNL) Program was created in 1962 to identify, recognize, and support the conservation of sites that represent the natural heritage of the U.S., especially those with outstanding examples of biological or geological features, according to the release. Landmark sites are deemed nationally significant based on their outstanding condition, illustrative character, rarity, diversity, and value to science and education.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to a letter addressed to Steven and Jeanne Beckley from the U.S. Department of Interior, Glenwood Caverns and Iron Mountain Hot Springs were specifically picked for this designation because it was discovered that the downcutting of the Colorado River into the Leadville Limestone created unique ecosystems within Iron Mountain.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park caves and Iron Mountain Hot Springs are habitats for species adapted to live in the extreme environments of the hot springs and the low-nutrient conditions of the caves, including eight native troglobites (fully cave-adapted species) and a diversity of microbes including 38 unique types of bacteria,\u201d the release states.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steven said he and his wife applied for the NNL designation over 10 years ago, though they never expected the process would take as long as it did. Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park General Manager Nancy Heard has been working for the Beckley\u2019s for over 15 years, and Steven recalled the designation being one of her responsibilities when she first took the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey went through a whole process of review through several doctors and geologists\u2026\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 But it just took a lot of years for the experts to go through all the processes and to get it passed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said that while he doesn\u2019t think the NNL designation will have an impact on visitation, he hopes it will help to protect the surrounding land from\u00a0Rocky Mountain Industrials\u2019 expansion proposal<\/a>, which would\u00a0expand the existing Transfer Trail limestone<\/a>\u00a0quarry from 20 acres to an open pit mine of 321 acres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere actually are other caves on quarry property that also have significance, so (I\u2019m hoping) that we will be cautious before we start just throwing stuff like that through quarry operations,\u201d Steven said. \u201cI hope this will have an impact on making sure that the future quarry activities are, maybe not stopped, but that they\u2019re at least thoughtfully done, so they don\u2019t impact potential treasures. Once they\u2019re destroyed, but you\u2019ll never get it back.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

More so than being worried about caves being destroyed by the expansion, the owners\u2019 main concern had more to do with the hot springs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe limestone that the caves are in is the same aquifer that supplies the water to the hot springs, so we\u2019re more concerned at this time about the quarry impacting the recharging of the hot springs aquifer and impacting the hot springs \u2026 and the flows to those to those facilities,\u201d Steven said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Glenwood Caverns and Iron Mountain Hot Springs have together been designated as a National Natural Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, a Wednesday news release states. The region\u2019s iconic fixtures are owned by Steven and Jeanne Beckley.\u00a0 \u201cGlenwood\u2019s caverns and hot springs are iconic Colorado treasures,\u201d U.S. Senator Michael Bennet said in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2488293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-08 10:25:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2488293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2488293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2488293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2488293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2488293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}