Grutas del Águila

Cuevas del Aguila


Useful Information

Location: 9 km from Arenas de San Pedro. From Ramacastañas or from CL-501 Ramacastañas-Candeleda, exit Ramacastañas west, follow AV-P-708 to the southwest for 4 km. Signposted.
(40.15467088025223, -5.071870501714745)
Open: MAR to AUG daily 10:30-13, 15-19.
SEP to FEB daily 10:30-13, 15-18.
[2021]
Fee: Adults EUR 8, Children (5-16) EUR 7, Children (0-4) free.
Groups (25+): Adults EUR 7.
[2021]
Classification: SpeleologyKarst cave
Light: LightIncandescent Electric Light System
Dimension: L=1,000 m, T=15-17 °C, H=100%, A=427 m asl.
Guided tours: L=1,000 m, D=40 min.
Photography:  
Accessibility:  
Bibliography: David Dominguez-Villar, Ian J. Fairchild, Rosa M. Carrasco, Javier Pedraza, Andy Baker (2010): The effect of visitors in a touristic cave and the resulting constraints on natural thermal conditions for palaeoclimate studies (eagle cave, central Spain), Acta Carsologica 39 (3): 491-502, 2010.
Address: Grutas del Águila, Carretera Cuevas del Aguila, S/N, 05400 Arenas de San Pedro, Ávila, Tel: +34-9203-77107, Mobile: +34-6608-42493, Fax: +34-9203-77852. E-mail: contact
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then.
Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

24-DEC-1963 discovered by five children.
18-JUL-1964 opened to the public.

Description

Grutas del Águila (Eagle Cave) is a single huge chamber with a surface of 10,000 m². It is entered from the surface down a 20 m deep staircase, the rest of the tour is an almost level round course on the floor of this huge chamber.

The cave was disocvered on Christmas Eve 1963 by five boys, the children of local farm workers. They saw a column of "smoke" on this cold day, actually it was the condensing humidity from the warm and humid cave air emerging through the cave entrance. So they were able to locate the cave entrance in Cerro de Romperropas. When they reached the entrance, they decided to explore the cave and discovered the huge chamber. A fantastic adventure and they became famous for discovering the cave, but exactly the kind of stunt we strongly discourage on this website. They went into the cave with a single flashlight and some rope, no other preparations or equipment. As a result they got lost for five hours inside this extremely easy cave. And this cave is just a single huge chamber, would they have survived if the cave was a labyrinthine cave system?

This cave is noted for an abundance of speleothems including stalactites, stalagmites, pillars, rimstone pools, and helictites. A specialty are so-called cave corals, which are actually fine calcite crystals which formed on stalagmites and cover them looking like fur. There are moonmilk, popcorn, anthodite and crust speleothems found in different parts of the cave. They are probably a result of evaporation processes, according to Hill and Forti (1997).

This cave is visited by many visitors, which normally influences the atmospheric conditions inside a cave radically. Many painted caves had to be closed because of this. In order to decide how much cave temperature depends on such influences, to decide how reliable temperature measurement on speleothems are, a team of cave scientists evaluated temperature measurements of this cave. The result was interesting: the cave was almost unchanged by the huge amount of visitors, because the warmth could spread out inside the huge chamber. The makes measurements of palaeoclimate form speleothems of this cave very reliable.