Bridal Cave & Thunder Mountain Park

Whether you are a local in the area or planning a vacation to the Lake of the Ozarks soon, knowing what the weather outside is going to do plays a role in our day to day activities. If you currently have a weather app on your phone that predicts the weather for the lake area, the prediction source is typically at least an hour away. National weather networks can be reporting from much farther away. Your favorite natural attraction at the Lake of the Ozarks has a solution for a more accurate forecast! We have our very own weather station right here in the park! Rainwise Weather Reporting Station  Our weather station is apart of the Wunderground Weather Network, which is a subsidiary of The Weather Channel. However, since the weather station is located right here at our attraction at the Lake of the Ozarks , it has the capabilities of predicting very precise forecasts. The Bridal Cave and Thunder Mountain Park Weather Station uploads live data every four seconds....

When you work at Bridal Cave and Thunder Mountain Park , or even if you visit our incredible park often, you develop an increased awareness and appreciation for all of the beautiful nature surrounding us. This includes the animals that we share the lake area with. This weekend offers a wonderful chance to learn more about the majestic eagle.   photo from Lake of the Ozarks Eagle Days Facebook page What is Eagle Days?  Friday, January 5 is National Bird Day across the country, and over the weekend ( January 6 & 7 ) the Lake of the Ozarks will celebrate one bird in particular during the 18th Annual Eagle Days . The original event, which started in 1999, attracted 651 participants. Last year that number grew to over 3,700 people joining in the fun! If you haven't had the chance to experience one of these celebrations, you really should make a point to check out this free nature event this weekend.  An effort is made to feature both entertaining and educatio...

Touring Bridal Cave & Thunder Mountain Park is fun, improves your brain, and makes you better looking! Well, we exaggerated that "good-looking" part, but the other two are really true. Scientists have performed research to prove the benefits of enjoying the outdoors, and the results are extremely favorable. Here are a few ways that you can benefit from a visit to our Lake of the Ozarks scenic attraction .  Nature Is Good For You, Naturally People today spend a lot of time rushing here and there, worrying and stressing over every little detail of their day-to-day existence. A lot of time is spent in front of one type of screen or another (phone, tablet, computer, television, etc...) as much as 12 hours every single day! The more time you spend like that, the more likely you are to be worn out and overwhelmed. Getting outside and away from all of that stuff is good for both your body and your mind.  Improved Mental Health After studying the brain activity, heart r...

The inside of our mid-Missouri scenic underground cave contains a very unique ecosystem. The animals and bugs that live in Bridal Cave have adapted to the climate of this cave system in some very interesting ways. Some of the creatures you are most likely aware of are the tricolor bats, salamanders, and even frogs. What you may not realize is that there is an entirely different ecosystem in addition to those that can only be seen under a microscope. For the first time in the history of Bridal Cave, we are conducting a survey to find out exactly what types of small creatures exist inside the cave.  One of our incredible tour guides, River Wise, has a wonderful fascination with all bugs and animals. When his Science Research Class at Camdenton High School discussed doing a biological inventory, River immediately brought up Bridal Cave as the perfect site to conduct this class project. We are thrilled that his teacher agreed!  With permission from general manager St...

Bridal Cave is know for being one of the most unique wedding venues in the Midwest . To date, there have been over 3,300 weddings performed at Bridal Cave & Thunder Mountain Park . That's not the only romantic things that happen here though.  More than 10,000 couples every year visit us while on their honeymoon, and over 1,000 couples come back on their anniversary each year to visit the place where they exchanged their vows. Weddings take place in both our underground wedding chapel and outdoor covered lakeside pavilion.  Our Lake of the Ozarks scenic attraction is also home to some wonderful and creative wedding proposals! If you didn't think a cave could be a romantic spot, these memorable stories will prove you wrong.  Diamonds in the cave? On one of the routine tours through Bridal Cave, a gentleman asked the guide if there were any diamonds found anywhere in the cave. Just as the guide was about to explain that no, there were not... his friend annou...

Once your Bridal Cave tour has ended, the fun's not quite over yet. After you make your way through our scenic mid-Missiouri cave , the tour guides will provide all of the children in the group with free fish food to toss to the giant, hungry grass carp that are always swimming around our dock.  These gigantic fish are always hanging around, looking for a handout. In the wild, the diet for these herbivores will consist of a variety of plant matter. The young feed mostly on small crustaceans and other invertebrates. As they get bigger, they will mainly eat aquatic vegetation, but may also eat a wide variety of plant and animal material, including filamentous algae.  The appetite of the grass carp is huge, and it is no problem for them to eat food equal to their body weight every day.  Here at the Lake of the Ozarks, you will find these carp around most docks, especially at waterfront restaurants. Those particular fish will eat just about any leftovers th...

Bridal Cave has been the site of many field trips, especially in the spring when school is winding down for the year. Thousands of school children enjoy our Lake of the Ozarks cave tour , learning interesting facts during a special day out of the classroom. The parks offer unique educational programs that are informative, hands-on, and most of all, fun. Known as "The Cave State" due to its over 7,000 caves, Missouri offers our school children many chances to explore these underground wonders. We believe it is important to teach kids about the relationship between the surface and subsurface, and the many ways that the two are connected.  Caving safely is also a topic that we cover during these field trips. The caver's motto is: Take nothing but pictures. Kill nothing but time. Leave nothing but footprints. One of the true pleasures of sharing Bridal Cave and Thunder Mountain Park with the many students that visit us is the wonderful letters and picture...

A couple of month's ago we wrote about the beautiful new improvements that were in the works for Thunder Mountain Park this spring. Well, we did it! The brand new botanical gardens and waterfall at our Lake of the Ozarks natural attraction are amazing, and they are ready for you to come by and take a look.  The beginnings of this new landscaping project started last October with the removal of old plants and some dirt work. This was all in preparation for the addition of a dazzling waterfall. This new park feature has been highly anticipated by our staff and the many park visitors that witnessed the work in progress. We are all so excited that the wait is finally over.   A special thank you goes out to John and the entire team at Doctor's Lawn & Landscaping from Camdenton, MO. They designed and installed the new gardens at Thunder Mountain Park. The work this spring started with the crew bringing in new black soil, compost, and mulch to fill the newly constru...

When you visit our Lake of the Ozarks family attraction , the memories that you take home with you will be treasured forever. In addition to those memories, you may want to take home a physical souvenir to remember the day by too. Our Bridal Cave gift shop is filled with many unique and amazing items. One extremely fun one that you can not only purchase, but actually make yourself, is a geode.  What is a geode? The name geode is derived from the Greek word Geoides which means earthlike. They are mysterious, spherical rocks. We say mysterious because geologists have long debated just how they are formed. These round rocks have a hollow cavity in the center that may or may not contain crystals. If yours turns out to be solid, it is called a nodule.    How to break a geode. The rock shop at Thunder Mountain Park has one of the few geode crackers in the country. This custom built high pressure cracker is housed in a stainless steel metal containment with...

Here at Bridal Cave & Thunder Mountain Park there is always something new to see and learn, even for us! We had our wedding bell refurbished recently and found out that is was one of the very first bells ever made by the C.S. Bell Company in 1875. Next week we'll tell you all about the story of our Lake of the Ozarks wedding chapel's bell , but today we would love to share some interesting information about the company that created it.  The C.S. Bell Company was founded by Charles Singleton Bell. He learned the foundry business from his uncle, Alexander Bradley. After working in a few different foundries, Bell began his own company in Hillsboro, Ohio in 1858. This new company had only 2 employees. It started out producing tons of pig iron, and later began manufacturing many different items: Mogul stoves, caboose stoves, coffee hullers and pulpers, plows and garden rollers, and more. They did not start producing bells until 1875.  In that first yea...