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Lava Beds National Monument

Photo: NPS Photo / Public Domain

🕳️ Caves

Lava Beds National Monument

Tulelake, CA · Modoc Plateau

About

Tucked into a high desert plateau near the Oregon line, Lava Beds hides more than 800 lava tube caves under its sagebrush, the densest concentration in North America, and 27 of them have marked entrances you can drop into with a headlamp. Underground, the tubes run for hundreds of feet at a stretch: the long tunnels of Catacombs and Sentinel, the ceiling of Golden Dome lit gold where water beads on a film of cave bacteria, and the year round ice of Crystal Ice and Skull caves, frozen columns and pools sitting in the dark of a basalt desert. Above ground are Petroglyph Point, one of the largest rock art panels in the country, and Captain Jack's Stronghold, where Modoc fighters held off the US Army for five months in the lava maze.

Highlights

800+ lava tube caves, the densest in North America27 caves with marked entrances and trailsYear-round ice in Crystal Ice and Skull cavesGolden Dome's gold-shimmering bacteria ceilingPetroglyph Point rock art and Captain Jack's Stronghold

Getting there

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Part of these collections

Curated guides that feature Lava Beds National Monument.

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.