Merlin’s Cave, Canaan, New York

I don’t know much about the story of Merlin so I don’t know why he came to America.  Maybe like lot a lot of immigrants he was looking for a way to start a new life.  I understand his adventure with King Authur ended poorly so he probably wanted to get away from Britian.

I do know why he lived in a cave, magic doesn’t pay shit now, so back then?  Hoo boy.

This isn’t a review of Merlin as a person but an old friend of mine insisted that he’s an overrated wizard with inexplicably good publicity and asked me to tell people that whenever I could so I’ll mention it.  I don’t know if that’s true but I trust the person that told me.  YMMV

Merlin’s Cave is so fragile that you can’t actually go in it.  You can just look at the cave hole.  Which isn’t a great cave experience to me.  You say to me “hey Grace you wanna go to a cave?” I assume we’re going to get in that sucker. 

Merlin’s Cave part of a cave conservation area which I didn’t know was a thing that existed.  Do caves need to be protected?  I feel like caves should mostly be fine on their own.  Maybe we dig up more ground than I realize.  Fracking?  Is it fracking?

The cave preserve does have other caves you can go in, including one where 2 people died in the 70s which is why the preserve got started.  The guy that owned the cave originally didn’t it anymore because people had died in it so he donated it to cave preservation people.  Owning a cave is weird enough to begin with and then having a cave you don’t want?  What a world. 

According to a plaque there used to be lots of bats living in these in the caves there but they got white-nose syndrome and died.  Which is probably why there’s so many mosquitos in the area. 

On the grounds is the Ella Armstrong Cave.  It’s named after Ella Armstrong (ovs) who was a cave lady 1800s and carved her name into the rock so people would know that she found it first.  Or at least she was the first person to carve her name into the rock.  I assume that while she was looking for caves she had one of those puffy old time dresses and giant hats and could barely even get into a cave.  So that’s neat.

There’s plenty of parking so that’s a plus.

2 stars, maybe 3 if you love caves.