Happenin’
Places › Oregon › Oregon Caves National Monument
Oregon Caves National Monument

Photo: Oregon Caves National Monument (National Park Service) / CC BY 2.0

Caves

Oregon Caves National Monument

Cave Junction, OR · Siskiyou Mountains$$Park entry free; cave tours $20 adults, $15 youth

About

Water carved Oregon Caves through solid marble, at the end of a 20-mile road from Cave Junction. Most caves like it form in limestone or gypsum. The only way in is a ranger-led tour, run from May to the start of November. The 90-minute Discovery Cave tour climbs more than 520 steps at a steady 44 degrees, and on one 88-foot passage the ceiling drops to 45 inches. Children shorter than 42 inches can't go, even carried. Buy same-day tickets at the Illinois Valley Visitor Center in Cave Junction before you head up; the last 8 miles of the road are steep, with blind corners and deer. On summer Fridays through Sundays, the day's last tour goes by candle lantern, ten people at most.

Highlights

Cave carved through solid marble90-minute Discovery Cave tourOver 520 steps at 44 degreesCandlelight tours, summer Friday to SundayOff-trail caving, summer SaturdaysSame-day tickets in Cave Junction

Getting there

19000 Caves Hwy, Cave Junction, OR 97523

Related places

Multnomah Falls Lakes & rivers

Multnomah Falls

Corbett, OR · Columbia River Gorge, OregonFree

Oregon's tallest waterfall drops 620 feet in two tiers, and the whole thing sits five minutes off Interstate 84, which is exactly why it draws two million people a year. The…

Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert Mountains

Steens Mountain and the Alvord Desert

Frenchglen, OR · Southeast Oregon High DesertFree

Steens Mountain is a 30 mile fault block that lifts a vertical mile above the Alvord Desert playa, and the pair makes one of the darkest night landscapes left in the Lower 48…

Cannon Beach Beaches

Cannon Beach

Cannon Beach, OR · Oregon Coast

Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, Oregon, is 235 feet tall. The tide pools around its base are best on a low tide of 0.0 feet or lower. Get there about an hour before the low to…

More in Oregon

Others worth the drive in Oregon.

All of Oregon →
Crater Lake National Park Lakes & rivers

Crater Lake National Park

Klamath Falls, OR · Cascade Range, Southern Oregon$

Crater Lake, 1,943 feet deep, fills the caldera of Mount Mazama, an Oregon volcano that stood some 12,000 feet until eruptions about 7,700 years ago collapsed it. Native…

Part of these collections

America's Best Caves22 places

America's Best Caves

The Park Service runs eight of these 22 caves, and most of the rest are commercial show caves at $23 to $36 an adult. If you only pay for one, make it Ruby Falls: you ride an elevator 26 stories down inside Lookout Mountain and walk to a 145-foot waterfall.