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Crystal Cave (Sequoia National Park)

Photo: King of Hearts / CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

🕳️ Caves

Crystal Cave (Sequoia National Park)

Three Rivers, CA · Sierra Nevada

About

Behind a wrought-iron spider-web gate the Civilian Conservation Corps forged in 1940, Crystal Cave opens into a marble cavern an underground stream carved and is still polishing smooth. The lantern-and-walking tour, the only way in, winds a half-mile loop past stalactites, draperies, soda straws, and rimstone dams, with whole walls of marble worn to a sheen by the water. It is the single cave open to the public out of more than 240 mapped in the park, holding a steady 48 degrees while the Sierra bakes overhead.

Highlights

1940 CCC spider-web entrance gateMarble polished by an underground streamStalactites, draperies, soda straws, and rimstone damsSequoia Parks Conservancy lantern tourOnly public cave of 240+ in the parkA steady 48 degrees year-round

Getting there

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Curated guides that feature Crystal Cave (Sequoia National Park).

America's Best Caves22 places

America's Best Caves

Step out of the daylight into another world: the longest cave on the planet in Kentucky, a desert chamber big enough to swallow a stadium in New Mexico, an underground waterfall in Tennessee, and a living crystal cavern in Arizona. Some you walk, some you ride a boat through, and one you crawl with a headlamp. America's great caves and caverns, from the national parks to the lantern-lit show caves.