Useful Information

Guided Tours

Every show cave, mine or subterranea on this site has a short list of hard facts called Useful Information. With a contemporary browser it will be displayed like this text, with smaller font and darkgreen letters on white background. In the Useful Information block you find information in a very brief form, which makes some explanation necessary. It is very difficult to write dates, fees and hours in a well readable manner, so we always tried to find a sort of "international" way of writing it, which should be understood by anybody. But if you do not understand it, here is the explanation:

All information about guided tours, like:

L	Length of tour in meters. The guided tour may be longer than the cave itself, if the path follows a tunnel more than once.
VR	Height difference between highest and deepest point of tour (Vertical Range). It may give you a hint how strenuous the tour will be.
D	Duration of the tour in minutes. Be aware, that this may differ from guide to guide and depend on how big your group is and how much questions are asked.
St	Steps of the path. Like the HD it is just a hint how difficult the tour will be. If the tour is suitable for disabled, it will be mentioned too
V	Visitors per year. This may change so we give the year of the number in square brackets.
Min	Minimum size of guided tour groups. Guided tours are usually only offered for a minimum number of visitors, as otherwise it is not worth the effort. This number is usually very low, but if only one visitor comes to a regular guided tour, they may have to wait until the next tour.
Max	Maximum size of guided tour groups. The size of the tour is very often limited by the circumstances. For example, in mines by the seating capacity of the mine train, in show caves by the size of the chambers. This value is certainly helpful for anyone who wants to organise an excursion. Unfortunately, this value is usually not specified by the operators and is therefore also missing here.
MinAge	Minimum Age of participants. Operators often require a minimum age because experience has shown that younger children have difficulty keeping up, may panic, or simply because authorities require it for safety reasons. This applies in particular to cave trekking tours. However, it depends on the individual; children should not be forced to do anything and should leave the cave immediately if they become frightened. In some cases, however, this is difficult. In addition, it is often not possible to take infants with you because appropriate carrying aids are not permitted due to lack of space.
MinSize	Minimum Size (Minimum height) of participants. The minimum height is an alternative to the minimum age. It makes more sense if certain ladders or stairs are very strenuous for people of smaller stature. However, specifying height is also culturally determined; it is common in China, for example. There, height is even used to determine admission prices.
MaxAge	Maximum Age of participants. This value is extremely rarely specified, but it does occur. In fact, a certain level of physical fitness and mobility is usually necessary. However, this cannot be determined by age alone. In this context, Accessibility is much more informative.
self guided	In most caves and mines entry is allowed only with a guide, if this is not the case we mention that self-guided visits are possible. In this case the given duration may be for an average self-guided visit or an optional guided visit.

The dimension of the tours is given in metric units. If you have problems with meters, here is a simple calculator to get the measures in feet:

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miles		kilometers
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feet		meters