The curious case of Harry Shick’s backyard cave

While I am a “Type A” traveler who does her planning homework—reading guidebooks, blogs and generally over-preparing—there is virtue in spontaneity. So when my husband Justin and I visited Hawai‘i Island. and our host shared her recommendation of Kazumura Cave, I tried not to think too hard about booking a tour. We should just do it. Then, I read this from Shick:

“If you are: extremely claustrophobic, afraid of being underground, afraid of the dark, have a paralyzing fear of heights, afraid of ladders or are extremely uncomfortable about being locked in, you should avoid these tours.”

After pondering at which point uncomfortable becomes extremely uncomfortable, we pick up the phone to call and book our reservation. 

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Shick tells us there is plenty of availability for any of the days we want to come by, and gives us actual turn-by-turn directions that include landmarks like concrete driveways, metal gates and palm trees. 

The no-maps directions work. When we arrive, 55-year-old Shick emerges from the forest dressed in the manner of a youngster, wearing baggy clothing like he is still growing into everything. He immediately asks for us to pay for the tour, cash only. I gulp. Are we really doing this? I check my cell to text my sister-in-law our last known location. No service.

There are 101 known entrances to Kazumura. To date, Shick has explored 60 percent of the whole cave. This tour only covers about 4 percent. Not all areas of Kazumura—or lava tubes and caves, for that matter—are for exploring though. Many chambers and tubes should be left undisturbed, as they have tremendous Indigenous cultural significance. 

The Hawai’i Tourism Authority explains that native Hawaiians have used these volcanic cavities as sacred burial chambers for deceased Ali‘i (royalty) for centuries. These burial chambers—as well as other sacred areas—are kapu, or off-limits, and should not be visited. Shick tells me that he once came upon a kapu area during a solo exploration of Kazumura and quickly retreated out of respect.  

The Hawai’i Tourism Authority tells me that Shick’s tours do not cause any conflict with Native sacred practices, nor are they considered culturally insensitive. I feel slightly more at ease about the tour as he hands me a hard hat that smells of sweat, tattered work gloves and a handheld flashlight.

With that, Justin and I follow him through a Jurassic Park-esque rainforest with impossibly verdant vegetation. The land feels peaceful, regal and old—an Eden of sorts. We come upon a ladder that drops us into a sinkhole, where the mouth of the cave is large and bespeckled by the roots of shaggy-barked ʻōhiʻa trees.

Once we’re inside the cave, I feel like I am deep underground, encased in the Earth. Turns out, we’re going deeper.

Ahead of us, Shick unlocks a heavy, creaking, jail cell-sized door and enters the darkness. I feel like Chunk in “The Goonies,” dubiously following Sloth through the fireplace into the underworld. Being locked underground with a stranger might be a hard pass for some, but Justin assures me this is common practice in caving. 

Shick flips the lights and barrels right into his well-rehearsed tour.

“Do NOT touch anything,” he stresses. Around us, I hear water dripping. Everything is solid rock at this point of its history, but the ceiling and walls that encompass me look like they are sagging and melting — like a cake with too much frosting between the layers.

Shick is not your typical enterprising local. He always had an interest in caves, but never pursued it as a profession. Instead, the jobs he took in his 20s in Hawai’i included everything from banana packing to plumbing and electrician apprenticeships. He had been living on O’ahu before deciding to move to Hawai‘i Island, merely because he liked volcanoes and land was cheaper than on O’ahu. He bought three acres for $12,500 in 1995. 

“A neighbor told me there was a cave on the property, but I didn’t believe her,” Shick explains. He shifted through the overgrowth of mosses, ferns and grasses without finding signs of any cave (or the boundaries to his parcel, for that matter). “When I was about to start the foundation for the house, a cave surveyor approached me about Kazumura,” he says. “I didn’t believe him either when he said it was on my property. If he hadn’t given me specific directions on how to find the sinkhole, I don’t know if I would have ever gone that direction.”

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Around the time he discovered Kazumura for himself, Shick toured Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, the longest known cave system in the world. He took what he learned and started thinking seriously about tours.

After six months of clearing a forest path to the sinkhole entrance and setting up ladders, rebar, and lights, Shick was ready for business by 1996.

Once we’re inside the cave, I feel like I am deep underground, encased in the Earth. Turns out, we’re going deeper. Within minutes, we come to two ladders that drop us 20 feet further into the ancient surroundings.

Our destination is one mile away, to what Shick has dubbed the ‘Pit Room.’ Alternatively, there’s a shorter ‘Lava Falls’ tour for $45 per person, and a more intense ‘Maze Tour’ for $110 per person, which is for experienced cavers and climbers and involves a 37-foot (11-meter) rappel.

My mind meditates on Indigenous lore, sci-fi storylines and science—the ways we explain and cherish the places on, and below, the earth we live on. I smile as we turn around and head back. Isn’t this every adventurer’s fantasy?

“The first two-and-a-half years, everyone who came signed the guest book. It filled up two pages,” Shick says. “When the tour showed up in guidebooks and on TripAdvisor, I started averaging about 800 to 1,000 people—about 280 tours—per year.”

Shick speaks knowledgeably about cave preservation as we wind through both narrow and wide passageways. Lava tubes form when lava flows downslope and cools from the inside out. Hawaiian lava erupts at 2,165ºF (1,185ºC), so the “brisk” 80ºF (26ºC) outside air hardens it. An outside crust forms solid walls, a floor, and a ceiling, thus protecting the still-advancing lava. Kazumura Cave got its name in the 1960s when the government surveyed and designated one of the cave’s entrances, likely naming it after the property owners.

Our private tour dishes out a little bit of everything—cascades of petrified lava, jumbles of rubble suspended in place within the cooled lava flow, and decorated ceilings of lavacicles, straws and dribble spires, similar in appearance to stalactites and stalagmites. Although the highest point is 40 feet, there are a few spots we have to duck under low ceilings. 

Using a tiny yellow notebook, Shick updates data on the lava tube, noting new cracks and critters, such as crickets and spiders. He takes the research and protection of Kazumura Cave seriously. In fact, in 2010, Shick began to notice damage and development threatening the cave. So, he set up the Kazumura Cave Preserve, which privately funds the website, the purchase of private lots that sit above the cave, and sends letters to other lot owners to notify them of the cave’s presence.

As I walk through Kazumura, I dare not touch anything. We see aʻā, a jagged type of solidified lava that forms when the lava flows fast, as well as pāhoehoe—a type of smooth lava. Then, we see strange white coloring on a wall.

“That’s bacteria growth. I don’t know what kind, or how it got there,” Shick says, before detailing how he tasted it once to try to identify it and got sick.

We finally find ourselves one mile into the lava tube. Shick sends us individually over an underground ridge. There it is—the “Pit Room.” I hear Justin gasp. When I take my turn, I stop in my tracks at the 25-foot-by-35-foot (8-meter-by-11-meter) chasm in the cave’s floor. How did it form? My mind meditates on Indigenous lore, sci-fi storylines and science—the ways we explain and cherish the places on, and below, the earth we live on. I smile as we turn around and head back. Isn’t this every adventurer’s fantasy?

“I am sure when I decide to retire, someone who is just as passionate and protective will show up to continue the tours,” Shick comments as we wrap up. Justin’s eyes widen and he looks at me. I shake my head no.