Kartchner Caverns State Park

To make Cave Tour Reservations and Book Tickets: Call (520) 586-2283. You can call 7 days a week, from 8 am to 5 pm MST. Book Big Room Tours now! The park closes at 2 pm on November 26 and December 24. The park is closed December 25.

See Photos from the Anniversary Celebration

On November 7 & 8, 2009, the park hosted a weekend full of insightful presentations, a large variety of interesting booths and fun kid's activities to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Grand Opening of the park. See photos from the event .

For a blast from the past, check out the Development of the Caverns Photo Gallery .

After you start the video, click the HQ button for High Quality.

Starting October 15, the Big Room re-opens for tours. Book now and experience nearly 1 hour underground. Children age 6 and under are not allowed on this tour. The Kartchner Cavern story is about amazing discoveries past, present and future. Marvel at the many strange and colorful formations. Learn about the cave fauna, both living and ancient. Read Cave Tour Information.

Experience a stunning limestone cave in Southeastern Arizona that boasts world-class features. This “live” cave, discovered in 1974, is host to a wide variety of unique minerals and formations. Water percolates from the surface and calcite formations continue to grow, including stalactites dripping down like icicles and giant stalagmites reaching up from the ground. Tour guides will unveil this fascinating underground landscape during a memorable 1½ hour tour.

The Discovery Center features museums exhibits, a large gift shop, regional displays, theater, and educational information about the caverns and the surrounding landscape. There are also campgrounds, hiking trails, lockers, shaded picnic areas, a deli, an amphitheater, and a hummingbird garden.

Read Cave Tour Information

Cave Discovery

It wasn't until February 1978 that Tenen and Tufts told the property owners, James and Lois Kartchner, about their amazing discovery. During the four years of secret exploration, the discoverers realized that the cave's extraordinary variety of colors and formations must be preserved.

The cave's existence became public knowledge in 1988 when its purchase was approved as an Arizona State Park. Extraordinary precautions have been taken during its development to conserve the cave's near-pristine condition.

Caverns Are Quite a Sight For Limestone Cowboys

“Later I tour the Rotunda/Throne Room (no bats; open year-round) expecting to hit cave saturation. Instead, I am again spellbound by boggling formations, such as a 21-foot, wire-thin soda straw, the second longest on record in the world, and the Kartchner piece de resistance: a 58-foot column, looming like a fat, ancient redwood tree, that the discoverers dubbed Kubla Khan.” —John Briley, Washington Post, Feb. 8, 2009. Read full article.

Cave Formations

This bell canopy is one of many fascinating features on the Rotunda-Throne Room tour at Kartchner Caverns State Park. It is formed by water flowing over a bump on the wall, then dripping to create this beautiful formation.

In November 1974 two young cavers, Gary Tenen and Randy Tufts, were exploring the limestone hills at the base of the Whetstone Mountains. In the bottom of a sinkhole they found a narrow crack leading into the hillside. Warm, moist air flowed out, signaling the existence of a cave. After several hours of crawling, they entered a pristine cavern.

The formations that decorate caves are called “speleothems.” Usually formations are composed of layers of calcite called travertine deposited by water. The form a speleothem takes is determined by whether the water drips, flows, seeps, condenses, or pools.

Kartchner Caverns is home to:

one of the world's longest soda straw stalactites: 21 feet 2 inches (Throne Room)
the tallest and most massive column in Arizona, Kubla Khan: 58 feet tall (Throne Room)
the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk (Big Room)
the first reported occurrence of “turnip” shields (Big Room)
the first cave occurrence of “birdsnest” needle quartz formations
many other unusual formations such as shields, totems, helictites, and rimstone dams.

Please Remember: Many of the formations you will see have been continuously growing for tens of thousands of years. The formations grow very slowly and are extremely fragile. When visiting remember that formations damaged even by accident will stop growing. To avoid damage to the cave and injury to yourself please refrain from touching any of the formations.

To make Cave Tour Reservations and Book Tickets: Call (520) 586-2283. You can call 7 days a week, from 8 am to 5 pm MST.

Read Cave Tour Information

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Kartchner Caverns State Park

See Photos from the Anniversary Celebration

Cave Discovery

Caverns Are Quite a Sight For Limestone Cowboys

Cave Formations