Mercer Caverns
Murphys (Calaveras County) · near Murphys · Gold Country & Central Valley
Caving
At a glance
- Depth
- 160
- Season
- Year-round · Daily tours · Limited hours — check website
- Cost
- Adults $23 · Children (3–12) $17
- Difficulty
- Moderate · 208 steps down / 232 steps back up · Chilly inside
Permits and booking
- Permit
- No permit. Located in Murphys on Sheep Ranch Road, 15 minutes from Moaning Cavern. Mining museum at the visitor center provides historical context for the 1885 gold-rush-era discovery.
Worth knowing
- Good for a first timer
- Yes
- Gear
- Warm jacket (chilly inside) · Good walking shoes for steps
Caving detail
- Nickname
- Murphys Caverns
- Cave type
- limestone
- Tour length
- 45 minutes · Quarter-mile through cave
- Formations
- Aragonite crystal needles / frostwork · Stalactites & stalagmites · Rare aragonite formations · Flowstone
- Featured caves
- Main Chamber Tour
- Intl tip
- Murphys is one of California's finest wine-tasting towns — a compact main street lined with tasting rooms, a historic hotel, and a farmers' market atmosphere. The Calaveras County wine region (Zinfandel and Carignan from 100-year-old vines) is genuinely excellent and almost entirely under the radar compared to Napa and Sonoma. A Mercer Caverns morning and a Murphys wine tasting afternoon is one of the Gold Country's finest days.
The guide
Walter J. Mercer was prospecting for gold in the Murphys area in 1885 when he literally fell into the cave that bears his name …
In the Guidebook
Everything above is yours for free. The written guide to Mercer Caverns — what it is actually like, and what we would tell a friend before they went — comes with the Guidebook.
Getting there
- Coordinates
- 38.15, -120.46