Field NotesOhio
Upper Falls in the Old Man's Cave gorge, Hocking Hills, with visitors on the rocks

An independent field guide · 365 places

The field guide to outdoor Ohio

Parks and forests, ancient mounds, caves, waterfalls and back roads, with the story behind each place and where to eat and fuel up nearby.
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  • 117parks & forests
  • 64ancient mounds
  • 34waterfalls
  • 40historic sites
  • 33road trips

Old Man's Cave, Hocking Hills · Photo: Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0

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

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Parks, forests & wildlife areas

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117 parks in 7 regions
Lit stalactites in Ohio Caverns

Caves & Caverns

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

Ohio Caverns · Photo: James St. John, CC BY 2.0

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.
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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.

Every cave in the guide (12)

Every place on Field Notes Ohio

Know a place that belongs here, or spotted something out of date? Email hello@fieldnotesohio.com.