Top places to visit in California in 2025 - Crystal Cave

Exploring California's great outdoors has never been so exciting

Crystal Cave

The Southern Sierra’s conjoined twin of a national park, Sequoia and King’s Canyon, has had a rough few years, punctuated by sequoia-killing wildfires and brutally damaging winter storms. The disasters closed one of the parks’ jewels, Crystal Cave, a marble cavern that cuts deep into the Sierra.

Sequoia boasts at least 240 known caves, but Crystal — its second largest — was the only one open to the public. Tucked into the earth outside the Giant Forest, just 10 miles from towering General Sherman, Crystal Cave’s closure left a 3-mile-deep hole in the visitor experience.

But the National Park Service has been working double-time to clean up the damage and rangers say Crystal Cave will finally reopen in 2025. Expect a guided half-mile hike tour through the pitch-black cavern, a constant 48-degree temperature year-round, and more stalactites than you can shake a hiking pole at. The ivory toned Marble Room is an especially striking feature of this cave and worth the journey.