Gypsum Arch Cave

Gypsum Arch Cave is only in Baddeck (forty minutes or so from where I live), but I had never heard of it before a geocache popped up there a few years ago. My boyfriend and I went together, and as is our usual system, he drove while I navigated us in the wrong direction. The cache site didn't list the direction of Plaister Mines Road, the last road where one can park their car, so I g-mapped it online. Learn from me and don't do that. G-maps took us up Big Harbour Road, onto Partridge Landing, and through some kind of gated private residence from which we had to turn around because there was no where to go but across the bay. After deciding to go back, we happened upon the road by chance by following exit 10 up Baddeck Bay Road, and connecting to Plaister Mines Road via OLD Big Harbour Road (i.e. following Plaister Mines from the West instead of its other, seemingly unreachable, end).We then drove to approximately N46 07.815 W060 38.023, parked there and began bush-wacking.

 

We dressed warm, but the rough terrain warmed our blood pretty quickly. And by rough--I mean very rough. A literary benefit of this excursion was learning a new word en route--karst terrain: an area or landscape formed through the dissolution of soluble rock (like gypsum), and characterized by sinkholes, ravines, underground streams, and caves. At first, it just appeared to be an old clearcut that had begun growing over. There were a lot of boggy areas, and no definable route, but nothing unmanageable. Unfortunately for us, we're as stupid as sticks, and we made our route much more difficult by following our GPS 'to a t' and so navigating up and down gypsum sinkholes instead of around them. We made much better time on our return route by going around these, but our journey in was difficult enough to sweeten the reward at the end.

 

Bad lighting and our ill preparation (no lights,bad camera) mean you'll have to see it for yourself to appreciate its beauty. 

  

Geocaches in area:

"Gypsum Arch Cave" N 46° 08.169 W 060° 38.069 Status: Needs maintenance (4/6/13) GC14ZN4