7 Caves to Explore in California

Black Chasm Cavern is a cave nestled in the hamlet of Volcano, located in Amador County, California. It is a dissolution cave, formed by sulfuric acid resulting from Geo-thermal hydrogen sulfide reacting with down-moving oxygenated surface water.

Originally called Mammoth Cave, California Cavern was California’s first show cave and is its longest cavern system. The cavern walking tour takes you through several passageways into multiple chambers on a trail system. On the way, you’ll see a wide variety of beautiful white, cream and caramel colored crystalline cave formations including stalactites, stalagmites, cave popcorn, flowstones and helictites.

Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park preserves centuries old Native American artwork that graces the wall of a sandstone cave in the Santa Ynez Mountains behind Santa Barbara. The smooth and irregularly shaped shallow sandstone cave contains numerous drawings apparently depicting the Chumash cosmology and other subjects created in mineral pigments and other media over a long period ranging from about 200 up to possibly 1000 years or more.

This is a show cave located in Calaveras county. It is named after the gold prospector Walter J. Mercer who discovered the caves around 1885 and filed a claim. It is formed in a marble unit known as the Calaveras Formation. It also contains a large display of aragonite frostwork. The standard tour of the cave descends 160 feet, 208 steps down and 232 up in a traverse between the natural and an artificial entrance.

Mitchell Caverns is three solution limestone caves, only two of which are open to the public. It was created primarily by the dissolution of sedimentary limestone and metamorphised limestone by ground water high in carbonic acid content. The "Tecopa" and "El Pakiva" caves are connected by a man-made tunnel and are open to guided tours led by California State Park rangers. These caves are the only limestone caves in the California State Park system.

Moaning Caverns is a solutional cave located in Calaveras County, California, near Vallecito, California in the heart of the state's Gold Country. It is developed in the marble of the Calaveras Formation. It was discovered in modern times by gold miners in 1851. One can visit this place and can understand the things in this cave. not at all a tour, it is a little bit adventurous too.

Sunny Jim Cave is one of seven unique La Jolla Cove caves. Having been open to the public since 1903, the cave boasts a fascinating history and a little bit of folklore. This fun attraction is a store that has a 143 step man-made tunnel built into it that heads down to a large sea cave below. Since the early 1900s, it has been giving visitors access to this cave year-round. It is the only cave in La Jolla you can get to without traveling over water on a kayak.