The present study focuses on the importance of visitors in Eagle Cave temperature, a tourist cavern in
Ávila, central Spain. Cave air temperature was measured during a year and natural and anthropogenic
thermal effects were identified. Eagle Cave has a rather stable temperature around 15.6ºC with an annual
cycle which amplitude is <0.4ºC. Recorded seasonality in the cave is related to external temperatures due
to thermal conduction through the bedrock, with an expected delay of several years for the external signal
to be transferred into the cave. The visitors cause increases in diurnal temperature up to 0.15ºC, although
thermal anomalies are normally recovered overnight. During vacation periods, where consecutive days
with large number of visitors increases, thermal anomalies are prolonged for some days or weeks, with
amplitudes <0.1ºC. Although visitors have a daily impact on the cave temperature, the effect does not
cause long term change in Eagle Cave temperature. The reason for this thermal mitigation is related to the
high humidity of the environment, which causes the energy supplied by tourists to be partially transferred
as latent heat via evaporation and condensation processes. The current condensation processes are
insufficient to cause any discernible condensation corrosion that could be damaging recent stalagmites
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