Field Notes Ohio

Ohio's parks, forests and wildlife areas with camping, the ancient mounds beside them, and the Buckeye Trail that links them. Stories, trails, wildlife, and where to eat and fuel up nearby. Book campsites on ReserveOhio.
Try:
The Buckeye TrailA 1,444-mile blue-blazed loop around Ohio, with all 26 sections.
Mounds & Earthworks43 ancient sites, including the Great Serpent Mound and the Newark Earthworks.
Historic Sites39 places, from Fort Steuben and Zoar to Camp Chase and the Rankin House, from the frontier to the Civil War.
Road Trips33 drives, from the Lincoln Highway to the Morgan Heritage Trail.
Lake Erie Beaches20 public beaches from Conneaut to Toledo and the islands, with a map.
Oddities & Roadside Attractions19 giants, ghosts and folk-art stops, plus a Mothman just over the line.
Caves & Caverns12 show caverns, recess caves and rock shelters, with a map.
Waterfalls34 falls from the Cuyahoga Valley to the Hocking Hills, with trail notes and a map.

Explore Ohio

One map for every park, mound, historic site, beach, cave, waterfall and oddity in the app.

Lake ErieWest Virginia27 places277 places77 places73 places35 places519 places1913 places1319 places1916 places168 places810 places1010 places109 places98 places820 places204 places43 places3Barkcamp State Park4 places47 places77 places76 places69 places917 places173 places3Harrison Lake State Park2 places2Forked Run State Park3 places32 places26 places610 places103 places32 places2

Tap a symbol for a preview, or search for a place. Open the key to show or hide categories.

117 parks in 7 regions

Caves & Caverns

12 places to go underground or under a ledge
Show caverns, recess caves, rock shelters and sandstone passages

Ohio has about 150 known caverns, but only a handful are open for tours, and many of the state's most famous 'caves' are something else. A true cavern is dissolved out of limestone and lies underground; a recess cave, like Ash Cave, is an open alcove weathered into sandstone. This guide keeps the two apart so you know what you are visiting, and lists only places open to the public.

Stay on the marked trails and official tours. Caves are fragile and can be dangerous, and entering any cave or crevice that is closed, unmarked or not open to the public is unsafe and unauthorized. Where a place has a construction or closure alert, check current conditions before you go.

Map of the caves →
12 places
Show caves and caverns

Underground caves you tour with a guide or an audio tour. These are true caves dissolved out of limestone, or crystal-lined geode caves.

Ohio Caverns

West Liberty · Champaign County
Ohio's largest known cave system, known as America's most colorful caverns, open year-round.
Show cavern (limestone)

Seneca Caverns

Bellevue · Seneca County
A guided tour down natural stone steps through a crack in the earth to an underground river 110 feet below the surface.
Show cavern (limestone)

Olentangy Caverns

Delaware · Delaware County
A self-guided audio tour through a limestone cavern on three levels, with Native American and settler history.
Show cavern (limestone)

Zane Shawnee Caverns & Southwind Park

Bellefontaine · Logan County
A Logan County cave and campground owned by the Shawnee Nation, United Remnant Band, open May to October on a limited schedule.
Show cavern and campground (check availability)

Crystal Cave at Heineman's Winery

Put-in-Bay · Ottawa County
A cave lined with blue-white celestite crystals, billed as the world's largest geode, discovered while digging a well in 1897.
Geode cave

Perry's Cave

Put-in-Bay · Ottawa County
A limestone cave 52 feet under South Bass Island, traditionally tied to Commodore Perry.
Show cave (limestone)
Recess caves and rock shelters

Open alcoves under sandstone ledges, made by weathering rather than by water dissolving rock underground. They are not caverns, but they are among Ohio's most visited places.

Ash Cave

Logan · Hocking County
Ohio's largest recess cave, a horseshoe of sandstone 700 feet across with a seasonal waterfall, reached by an accessible gorge trail.
Recess cave (sandstone)

Old Man's Cave

Logan · Hocking County
A gorge of waterfalls and recess caves where a hermit is said to have lived, with the park's visitor center.
Recess cave (sandstone)

Whispering Cave

Logan · Hocking County
A cave in the Hocking Hills gorge country with a 105-foot seasonal waterfall, reached by the Hemlock Bridge Trail from Old Man's Cave.
Sandstone cave (open alcove)

Old Maid's Kitchen (Mary Campbell Cave)

Cuyahoga Falls · Summit County
A rock shelter in Gorge Metro Park, reached by a half-mile walk on the Gorge Trail, long tied to the story of Mary Campbell, a legend the park now questions.
Rock shelter (sandstone)
Sandstone caves and rock passages

Trail formations where you walk through crevices, fissures and covered passages in sandstone and conglomerate.

Rock House

Logan · Hocking County
The only true cave in Hocking Hills State Park, a roofed sandstone passage with window openings, reached by a stepped trail.
Sandstone cave

Nelson-Kennedy Ledges (Devil's Icebox and fissure passages)

Garrettsville · Portage County
A 167-acre state park of tall conglomerate ledges, deep fissures and narrow passages, including the Devil's Icebox, Goldhunters Cave and Old Maid's Kitchen.
Rock fissures and passages

Take the stops with you

Load the caves into your maps app to plan a trip.

The file holds 12 waypoints and a stop-by-stop route line. Locations are approximate, often a town center, so use the stop notes to find the exact spot. Your maps app chooses the roads between stops, usually the fastest, so follow the byway signs where they differ. The GPX arrives in a zip file; unzip it and open the .gpx in a GPS or hiking app. The CSV imports into Google My Maps.