More to See of the Sea Caves
Burlington, Vermont's Natural Wonder in Bonus Footage and Photos for Substack Newsletter Readers
As you may have seen in my coverage this week, we’ve been below freezing in Burlington, Vermont for a bit, allowing Long Pond to freeze and making the Sea Caves in the Intervale accessible once again. Well, you can go up to the cavern. But you can’t go too far inside. Unless the temperature drops Below Zero for a time, the water inside the cavern doesn’t seem to freeze solid.
We haven’t seen that kind of cold since 2021, the last time I was able to see the back part of the cavern. I wasn’t able to get very far inside on this early 2025 visit. We’ll see what the rest of this Winter brings. I’m not hoping for that kind of a cold snap, not being a fan of bitter cold temperatures. But I guess it’s nice there’s an upside?
Here’s a look at the back from 2021, when the floor was frozen:
The caves are water-eroded out of orange-tan Dolostone, similar to Limestone except its made up of magnesium carbonate instead of calcium carbonate — the magnesium is responsible for the additional coloring we see. The “patterns” in the stone may simply be the remains of ancient sea creatures embedded in the rock, but I wonder if they’re more, or embellished.
When I first saw the patterns, I thought they could be petroglyphs of some kind. I emailed Vermont State Archaeologist Jess Robinson with photos asking what he thought. He didn’t think they were petroglyphs, and offered that they could be natural.
I do still wonder if they are modified by human hands in any way. It would be nice to get another look at those features. Except for the going through the bitter cold part.
It was warming up a little on the day I visited, which is why we see the icicles drop off the wall in the first video I shared of the cave here:
Still, it was cold enough for hockey and other skating down on the pond. A few skaters stopped over to the cave to check it out while I was down there visiting.
Thought you might enjoy a little Newsletter Exclusive video — this is similar to footage used in the final YouTube video, but sweeps across the interior in a different direction than I ended up moving. I shot a little more than needed — it’s such a public space, you don’t know if you’ll get a long shot in before someone come skating or hiking up. Luckily, this one is uninterrupted.
Without being able to move further into the space, views of the interior are limited, to a degree. Didn’t want to opt for the sort of fish-eye distortion of a wide angle lens, so, though I tend to shoot Landscape — Horizontal — photos, I opted for Vertical for a couple of shots, attempting to capture the sense of soaring space just inside the entrance.
Interested in some speculative stonework? Outside, to the right of the cave entrance, there is a bit of an alcove in which we find a perched Wing or Fin Shaped Stone. A small pool of water in front of the fin doesn’t seem to ever freeze completely, likely spring-fed.
I’ve been spotting variations of this stone feature around the Vermont side of the Champlain Valley for the last three years, perhaps so subtle or ordinary that it has eluded any scrutiny. I believe it could well be ancient in origin. The Fin- or Wing-Shaped Stone in an Alcove.
As I mention in the YouTube video, I think there’s potential Large-Scale work on either side of the cave entrance worth speculating on, as the curved, exposed bedrock appears shaped in spots to bring out the mouths and tails of these Great Fish Effigy Forms.
These forms are more rounded than they appear in two dimensions. To some, they won’t appear to be anything at all. This is usually the point at which the more rigidly scientifically-minded begin quoting definitions of pareidolia at me. Pareidolia underlies our tendency to see faces on the fronts of cars or shapes in clouds — our unconscious mind tends to impose patterns upon inanimate objects, especially faces.
Or fishes?
Although the Sea Caves are actually fairly close to my home, I don’t tend to visit too often. It was three years between visits for me, this time. It could be sooner, next time. I will go back if it gets really cold and the floor freezes. Otherwise, I’ll go again when the time feels right. I tend to believe that you should never visit a special place too often. You don’t want it to become ordinary.
See even more of the Sea Caves in these YouTube videos: