page_title: Kartchner Caverns State Park
section_title: Tourism information
hierarchical_section_title: Kartchner Caverns State Park / Tourism information
caption_attribution_description: English: Kartchner Caverns State Park
context_page_description: Kartchner Caverns State Park is a state park of Arizona, United States, featuring a show cave with 2.4 miles of passages. The park is located 9 miles south of the town of Benson and west of the north-flowing San Pedro River. Long hidden from view, the caverns were discovered in 1974 by local cavers, assisted by a state biologist who helped in its preservation.
  The park encompasses most of a down-dropped block of Palaeozoic rocks on the east flank of the Whetstone Mountains.
  The caverns are carved out of limestone and filled with spectacular speleothems which have been growing for 50,000 years or longer, and are still growing. Careful and technical cave state park development and maintenance are designed to preserve the cave system.
context_section_description: 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 ft 2 in (6.45 m)) soda straw stalactites and a 58-foot (18 m) high column called Kubla Khan, after the poem.  The Big Room contains the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk. Big Room cave tours are closed during the summer for several months (April 15 to October 15) each year because it is a nursery roost for cave bats, however the Throne Room tours remain open year-round.
  Other features publicly accessible within the caverns include Mud Flats, Rotunda Room, Strawberry Room, and Cul-de-sac Passage. Approximately 60% of the cave system is not open to the public.
  The park also includes hiking trails above the caverns for public use. The longest trail, the Guindani Trail, is 4.2 miles, while the shorter trail, the Foothills Loop Trail, measures 2.5 miles.
caption: A view from the walking trails above Kartchner Caverns State Park
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