After spending New Year’s Day 2020 at Three Rivers State Park, we headed a half hour west for a visit to Florida Caverns State Park on January 2. The park is a few miles outside Marianna, Florida.
As we entered the park, the effects of Hurricane Michael were still very visible. Once dense forests that lined the road to the visitor center parking area are gone and the terrain is much like Three Rivers State Park – wide open areas with haggard trees here and there. Homes and other development are visible not far away. It will take years for the forest to recover.
At the visitor center we purchased tickets for the one-hour guided cave tour. Tours fill quickly, so it is a good idea to get tickets when you first arrive and then tour the visitor center and park store while waiting for your tour to begin.
The Caverns
Florida sits atop layers of limestone and caves are pretty common. Most of Florida’s caves, however, are underwater connected to beautiful freshwater springs and reached only using SCUBA equipment. Florida Caverns is the only air-filled cave in Florida to offer tours.
The main cave entrance and portions of the tour were inaccessible due to flooding from recent rains, so we entered the cave through a secondary entrance nearby. We descended down more than 30 stairs, and once inside, we enjoyed stunning rock formations, including limestone stalagmites and stalactites, flowstones, soda straws, draperies, and more.
Beginning in the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps excavated the tour cave using pickaxes and hand tools. Most of the cave passages were originally only a few feet tall. Tours of the cave have been offered since 1942 and span an area of nearly two acres under the surface.
Interesting artifacts that can be viewed in the cave include CCC lanterns and white bowls embedded in the ceilings to reflect the lights.
We learned various animals call the cave home – bats, mice, cave crickets, salamanders, cave spiders and occasionally snakes and frogs. Fortunately we didn’t encounter any of these during our visit.
Here are additional views of the cavern formations:
The cave tour takes you up close and personal to the formations in a dozen or so cave rooms, unlike tours of much larger caves like Carlsbad Caverns and Mammoth Cave.
Florida Caverns are an enjoyable and cool way to spend a morning or afternoon while in the area.
Next week: we take a blog break as we head to Juniper Springs and Anastasia State Park in search of new rabbit trails!
Take the LONG Road... 
Not sure I knew there were caves here in Florida or if somebody told me, I probably wasn’t listening – it was probably the latter. Looks pretty interesting!
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Impressive cave for Florida, definitely worth a visit.
This was our second visit. During our first, it was a slow day and a ranger gave us a personalized tour!
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