Our visit to the Horne Lake Caves was our first disappointment during the vacation. That was mainly due to the description of the site in the promo material and on their website.

The Horne Lake Caves are located at the end of a dirt road. As dirt roads go it is in pretty good shape. The road wound up into the mountains that are the spine of Vancouver Island, so it was a long drive to the provincial park. The literature claims that there are three caves where non-cavers can investigate on their own, but the main use of the park is for people who want to do more serious caving.

We trundled up a steep path to Main Cave, then went downhill to Lower Cave, which was suggested as the cave to start a self guided visit. It had a steep entry that was also wet. Inside there was a small pool or puddle. The inside wasn’t very large, so it was in, quick look around, then out. There was an interesting drip formation, but not a lot else.

Main Cave is higher up on the mountainside. Once we got there we paused to let a tour out. They had visited a part of the cave that was blocked off to self-guided tours.  The entry to the cave is through a narrow cleft. The materials say you have to go sideways, but they don’t say that you need to be skinny to get through. They also didn’t say that the narrowness would add to the cave claustrophobia. I could have wiggled through, but I couldn’t see the point. Ann got through and said there wasn’t much there. As a result, we decided not to bother with the third self-guided cave located about a kilometer up the mountainside.

Before going out to the caves we watched a video about the caves which informed us that everyone, not matter what their age or physical preparedness could manage the self-guided caves. I have to disagree!

Though not my favourite excursion, the drive up was pretty and the path to the caves was through interesting terrain. And of course, I had good company!