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Howe Caverns

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🕳️ Caves

Howe Caverns

Howes Cave, NY · Mohawk Valley

About

Ride an elevator six stories down and you land in the largest show cave in the Northeast, where a lantern-lit path runs a mile and a quarter past banded rose-and-cream limestone, the towering Titan's Temple chamber, and formations the old guides named the Bridal Altar and the Sentinels. The walk traces the River Styx, the underground stream that carved all of this over millions of years, before it opens onto the Lake of Venus. There you trade your feet for a flat-bottomed boat and glide across water so still it mirrors the rock overhead, the quiet payoff that makes the trip out to Howes Cave worth it.

Highlights

Underground boat ride across the mirror-still Lake of VenusTitan's Temple, the cave's largest chamberNamed formations along the River Styx: the Bridal Altar and the SentinelsLargest show cave in the Northeastern US, 156 feet down

Getting there

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Part of these collections

Curated guides that feature Howe Caverns.

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.