involved in protecting the cave and its surroundings. The National Park Service is continually monitoring and striving to determine a successful balance between visitor access and cave preservation. A limited number of people per tour was implemented to help lessen the human impacts in the caves. The National Park Service also balances preservation with the needs of the Monument's staff. The Monument's original visitor center burned down in 1991, and the visitor center was housed in a double wide trailer house for almost three decades. With the temporary visitor center in a dangerous rock-fall zone, plans for a new center came under consideration. Following the monument closing for the season in September 2018, construction began on the new trailhead and visitor center. The trail and monument reopened to the public in June 2019. Geology The cave system is located in the Deseret Limestone, a Mississippian age limestone formed around 340 million years ago. Notably the cave cavity was formed initially by a series of faults running off of the Wasatch fault. Since that time hydrothermal water action perhaps similar to that of Cave of the Winds in Colorado, and uplift of the Wasatch Mountains has formed the modern cave system. The speleothems first started to form within the last 750,000 years, based on paleomagnetism of iron deposits within the formations, as the cave system has been slowly lifted above the unnamed stream that flows though the canyon (and becomes the American Fork [river] at the mouth of the canyon). See also List of national monuments of the United States Protected areas of the United States Mount Timpanogos References External links Official Utah travel site page about the caves A large collection of Timpanogos Cave speleothem pictures Local caving grotto photos of the Timpanogos Cave National Monument Environmental Impact Statement, General Management Plan Planned Improvements for Timpanogos Cave National Monument Martin Hansen (Find A Grave) National Park Service National Monuments in Utah Caves of Utah Protected areas of Utah County, Utah Protected areas established in 1922 Landforms of Utah County, Utah Show caves in the United States Wasatch Range 1922 establishments in Utah