California Show Caves

Visiting California’s show caves

These tour caves offer great experiences for everyone. Tours often last about an hour and a jacket is usually needed. Many of the caves and caverns offer “wild” or “adventure” off-trail tours for those who want to climb around, have fun and get muddy. In the Mojave Desert visit Providence Mountains State Recreation Area home to Mitchell Caverns. Mitchell Caverns is rich in cave formations including many rare shields. Moving north a great cave is Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park. This cave has it all, a flowing stream, big rooms and lots of great cave speleothems. Nearby in Kings Canyon is Boyden Caverns, in an amazing setting along the Kings River and in the bottom of Kings Canyon, one of the deepest in the US. In the Mother Lode Country there are multiple show caves, making this region the best for visiting tour caves in the state. Moaning Cavern features a giant, tall room, Mercer Caverns features beautiful aragonite crystals, Black Chasm has some of the best helictites in California and California Caverns features lakes, great cave formations and lots of history. Near Redding at the north end of the state is Lake Shasta Caverns with big rooms and big cave formations. All of these caves are well worth a visit