State park of Arizona, featuring a show cave with 2.4 miles (3.9 km) of passages
General Information
Holiday Hours: Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve 8:00am to 2:00pm
Closed Christmas Day
Per vehicle (2–4 people): $20.00
Individual/bicycle: $5.00
Cave tour tickets are additional and vary by tour type
How to Get There
From Tucson, AZ (50 mi): Take I-10 E to Exit 302 for AZ-90 S, then drive 9 miles south and follow signs to the park entrance.
Overview
Kartchner Caverns State Park is a living limestone cave with 2.4 miles of passages full of spectacular formations, 9 miles south of Benson near the San Pedro River. The formations have been growing for 50,000 years and still are, and the state’s high-tech air-lock doors and misting system protect the cave, which was kept secret for 14 years. Tours are led by park staff.
Things to Do
- Throne Room: the Throne Room tour is open year-round and features one of the world’s longest soda straw stalactites, at over 21 feet, and the 58-foot Kubla Khan column.
- Big Room: home to the world’s most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk; closed April 15 to October 15 because it is a bat nursery.
- Hiking: trails above the caverns, including the 4.2-mile Guindani Trail and the 2.5-mile Foothills Loop Trail.
Cavers Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts discovered the cave in 1974 by following warm, moist air from a sinkhole, and kept it secret to protect it. The state bought the land in 1988, and the caverns opened to the public in 1999.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Kartchner Caverns State Park", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
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