Lava Beds National Monument

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

Getting there

1 Indian Well Hqts., Tulelake, CA 96134