Kartchner Caverns State Park

Rotunda/Throne Tour will Close Oct. 15 – Dec. 14

Note: The Rotunda/Throne Tour will close for scientific research from October 15 – December 14; it will re-open starting December 15. During this time period you may take the Big Room Tour. Learn more

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. You can now make same day Cave Tour reservations! (based on availability)

Sept. 11: Star Night at the Park

Event starts at sunset around 6:30 pm. What to bring: folding chair, red light, sweater or jacket, enthusiasm to enjoy and conserve our beautiful night skies Entrance fees: $6/vehicle for the night of viewing, instruction and family fun. Come spend a cool evening with family and friends at the beautiful Kartchner Caverns State Park as astronomer and dark sky advocate, Mr. Robert (Bob) Gent and other local astronomers help Arizona State Parks’ host its 2nd “Star Night” event in Cochise County. Visit Jupiter and Venus through telescopes, and see close-up details of the craters of the moon. Explore the great globular cluster M13 in Hercules, composed of over 100,000 stars. See the M57 ring nebula found in the northern constellation of Lyra, the remnant of a star that exploded thousands of years ago. See stars, galaxies far, far away, and billions of years old. Learn More

Kartchner Caverns Video Tour

After you start the video, change resolution to 480 for High Quality.

Introductory Park Video

After you start the video, change resolution to 480 for High Quality.

Afterhours Photo Tour: Sept. 18 & Oct. 10

Two photo tours are open to the public this fall (Sept. 18 & Oct. 10). Each event is organized and operated by the nonprofit Friends of Kartchner Caverns State Park. Admission to each tour is $150. Tours are limited to 20 participants. Visit the Friends website and click on the links to read the details and purchase your ticket. All photos taken are for personal, non-commercial use only. All purchases are date- and time-stamped to identify the first twenty participants. Please sign up soon for this infrequent opportunity to spend time in the cave with lights on and time to carefully compose your experiences on film or digitally.

About the Park

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 3 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.

The Park will be closed December 25, 2010.

Read Cave Tour Information

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