This California cave is finally reopening. Here's how to explore the underground wonder

The stalactites and stalagmites of Sequoia National Park’s Crystal Cave, a sprawling subterranean wonderment that’s been closed for 4 years, volition beryllium accessible again this summer.

But to get successful during the unfastened play of May 23 done Sept. 7, you’ll request tickets, which are disposable now.

The guided tours are considered strenuous with steep terrain.

(Sequoia Parks Conservancy)

Visitors volition locomotion done the cave connected 50-minute guided radical tours, inspecting mineral formations and proceeding astir the cave’s past and uncommon geology. Rangers picture the way — a steep half-mile to scope the cave, past a half-mile loop wrong — arsenic “strenuous,” featuring imaginable encounters with poison oak, bees, rattlesnakes and falling rocks. It’s not suitable for young children oregon anyone with claustrophobia, rangers say, and the stairs are astir arsenic gangly arsenic a 20-story building.

The cave is 1 of astir 275 known caves successful Sequoia and neighboring Kings Canyon National Park. The park’s lone publically accessible cave, it has been unfastened to visitors since the 1940s, making it 1 of the astir visited subterranean landmarks successful California.

Savannah Boiano, enforcement manager of the Sequoia Parks Conservancy, said galore trees died adjacent the cave successful the drought of the 2010s, past ignited successful the 2021 KNP Complex fire, forcing the cave’s closure. Next came wintertime storms successful 2023, further damaging the 6-mile roadworthy to the cave. To prep for reopening, Boiano said, crews removed hazardous dormant trees, repaired roads and replaced the cave’s solar-powered electrical system.

“It truly has been the epicenter of immoderate earthy disasters,” Boiano said.

Crystal Cave includes much than 3 miles of surveyed passageways, carved by h2o implicit astir a cardinal years. Its somesthesia is simply a dependable 50 degrees. Its walls are marble — not the granite that dominates the Sierra Nevada scope — and an underground watercourse runs alongside overmuch of the cave trail. The past and largest “room” is known arsenic Marble Hall.

Visitors volition locomotion done intricate passageways.

(Sequoia Parks Conservancy)

The Sequoia Parks Conservancy is handling the reservations for tours ($21.20 for adults, $11 for children nether 10; pets forbidden), which are offered from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. In May, the tours are offered Friday done Monday, closed Tuesday done Thursday. From June done Sept. 7, tours are daily. Photography is allowed — but flashes, tripods, monopods and selfie sticks are banned. If upwind forces a cave closure, refunds are offered.

Tickets volition not beryllium sold astatine the cave, the conservancy said. Park rangers counsel visitors to bargain cave circuit tickets 2 months ahead, noting that historically, tours person sold retired successful July and August.