Discovering Arizona - Kartchner Caverns State Park

Approximate Driving Distances from:

Flagstaff - 310 miles (498 km)
Phoenix - 160 miles (257 km)
Benson - 9 miles (14 km)
Sierra Vista - 19 miles (30km)
Tombstone - 28 miles (45 km)
Tucson Airport - 49 miles (78 km)

PARK HOURS:
The park is open 7 days a week from 7:30am to 6:00pm (MST). Park Gates Open at 7:00am and close at 6:00pm.
Closed Christmas Day.

CAVE TOUR INFORMATION:
All tours are guided by a trained tour guide. The cave averages 68°F and 98% humidity year round. All cave trails are barrier-free. Due to wet surfaces and changes in grades, strollers and walkers are not allowed on the tours.

For more information visit The Friends of Kartchner Caverns State Park website.

The park encompasses most of a down-dropped block of Palaeozoic rocks on the east flank of the Whetstone Mountains in the Coronado National Forest. It is carved out of limestone and filled with spectacular speleothems which have been growing for 50,000 years and longer, and are still growing due to careful development and maintenance.

The caverns were apparently unknown to man until 1974, when Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen, two amateur cavers found a narrow crack in the bottom of a sinkhole, and followed the source of moist air towards what ended up to being over 2½ miles of pristine cave passages.

In the desire to avoid vandalism, the discoverers kept the location of the passages a secret for years; deciding that due to the cave's close proximity to a freeway and population centers the best way to protect the cave was to develop it as a tour cave, their story was finally made public in 1988 when the landowners sold the area to the state for development as a park and show cavern.

The caves have proven to be popular; over 750,000 people have visited the system in its first three years of the park's existence, a number over double what was projected in the 1992 master plan for the park.

The two major features of the caverns currently available to the public are the Throne Room and the Big Room. The Throne Room contains one of the world's longest (21' 2") soda straw stalactites and a 58-foot high column called Kubla Khan. The Big Room contains the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk; it is closed during the summer for several months (April 15th to October 15th) each year because it is a nursery roost for over 1000 cave bats.

Other features publicly accessible within the caverns include Mud Flats, Rotunda Room, Strawberry Room, and Cul-de-sac Passage.