3 Alabama Caves You Can Tour When It's Too Cold for the Lake

It’s too cold for a weekend on the lake, but you still want to get out of the house.

A few Alabama caves will take you underground instead, and a couple you might expect to visit won’t let you in.

Here are the Alabama caves you can tour when it’s too cold for the lake.

1. Cathedral Caverns

Cathedral Caverns State Park has a cave entrance that’s 126 feet wide and 25 feet high, which the state park calls a world record for commercial caves.

You walk in on a paved, lighted path.

Inside, a stalagmite named Goliath stands 45 feet tall and measures 243 feet around.

The Big Room runs 792 feet long and 200 feet wide.

A flowstone wall in the cave stretches 135 feet.

As of October 16, 2026, the park’s tour page lists the cave open seven days a week, with closures on New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama lists the cave at a constant 60 degrees year round.

A tour lasts about 90 minutes and covers about 1.5 miles round trip.

As of October 16, 2026, the tour page lists $20 for adults 13 and older and $9 for children 5 to 12.

School groups often book the mornings from September through November, and the park recommends planning your visit for noon or later.

The park recommends tour reservations, which you can book online.

Digs at the cave’s mouth indicate Native Americans used it as far back as 8,000 years ago.

Pets aren’t allowed in park buildings or inside the cave.

2. Rickwood Caverns

Rickwood Caverns State Park near Warrior promotes its cave tours as a year-round visit, and you can enter the cave only with a guide.

The tour is about a mile long and includes 365 stairs, 110 of them at the exit.

That’s a lot of stairs.

If you can’t manage the stairs, the park’s tour page lists a free virtual reality cave tour, subject to availability.

As of October 16, 2026, the tour page lists cave tours at $19 for ages 12 and up and $9 for ages 5 to 11.

The cave lies about 175 feet underground.

During the holiday season, the park lists a separate Wonderland Under Warrior tour at $12 per person.

You can also buy tickets in person at the gift shop.

The park says it’s possible for tours to sell out, and it highly recommends reservations.

Psst! How much do you know about caves and the creatures that live in them? Take our quiz and see if you can ace it.

Quiz

Cave Country IQ

Answer these questions on caves, cave creatures and underground history. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?

Question 1 of 10

A trader from South Carolina named I. W. Wright carved his name into the wall of a cave near Childersburg. What year did he do it?

3. Majestic Caverns

Majestic Caverns near Childersburg took that name in 2022, and the park was called DeSoto Caverns before that.

Its main room, the Great Onyx Cathedral, rises about 120 feet and covers more ground than a football field.

The Encyclopedia of Alabama lists the hour-long tour at a third of a mile and says it's wheelchair and stroller accessible.

That entry, written under the DeSoto name, says the caverns are open year round.

As of October 16, 2026, the park's website lists public hours Friday through Monday, and groups of 20 or more can book any day.

It's open all holidays except Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Thanksgiving Day, according to its FAQ.

The park's online calendar marks which days are open to the public, so you can check before you drive.

Its annual events include a Christmas Light Show and a Valentine's Light Show.

If you've got kids along, you'll find a Dinosaur Dig, gemstone panning, a climbing wall and a 3/4-mile maze.

The above-ground pass covers 15 or more attractions in the cooler months and 20 or more in the warmer ones.

For the tour, you'll want shoes with good traction and light layers, plus a jacket if you tend to get cold.

Listed Hours at Three Alabama Caves

As of October 16, 2026, the Cathedral Caverns State Park page lists hours of 9 AM to 5:30 PM.

Rickwood Caverns State Park lists office hours of 9 AM to 5 PM.

Its tour page lists tours at 10:00, 12:00, 2:00 and 4:00 and mentions a seasonal tour schedule.

Majestic Caverns lists public hours of 10 AM to 5 PM on Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays and noon to 5 PM on Sundays.

The Cathedral Caverns page says its times are subject to change and points visitors to Facebook for daily updates.

Russell Cave National Monument

Russell Cave National Monument near Bridgeport can't be your cold-month cave tour since the National Park Service says the public cannot enter the cave.

The park exists to protect one of the most complete records of human occupation in the Southeast.

Diggers unearthed over 2 tons of artifacts from the cave.

The earliest people to use it are believed to have arrived 12,000 to 11,000 years ago.

Some groups used the cave as winter quarters during the colder months and left when it was warmer.

The park's hours page, last updated in October 2024, lists 8 AM to 4:30 PM daily.

That page lists closures on Thanksgiving Day, December 25 and January 1.

If you stop by anyway, the visitor center lists 8:30 AM to 4 PM daily.

Sauta Cave

You can't tour Sauta Cave.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the cave, in a refuge west of Scottsboro, is gated and closed to visitors because they could disturb federally endangered gray and Indiana bats.

The Alabama Natural Heritage Program ranks the cave's biodiversity as a site of very high significance.

In summer, about 200,000 to 400,000 gray bats roost in the cave.

In winter, gray and Indiana bats hibernate there, and winter is when you'd be looking for an indoor outing.