I’ve always been interested in going to see these caverns since I was looking up all the caves in Ohio this past spring but I just hadn’t had a chance to until this weekend. My friend Ester brought up the caverns in conversation one day and she has been the only person who’s ever mentioned them to me before so we decided to go together! These caverns are located on the Northwest side of Columbus a ten minute drive from Highbanks metro park.
The caverns are regularly open from 9:30-5pm April 1st to October 31. The first and last two months they are open you can pay $10 for an adult to do a self guided tour. During the middle of that time period the tours are guided. Ester and I did a self guided tour.
When I arrived I was shocked to see that the place was busier than I had expected it to be. There were about 20-30 other people at the park on a Sunday afternoon. We checked in at the very nice gift shop. I also found out that they offer many other activities such as a petting zoo for $3, gem mining, and some outdoor games including a maze. This would be such a great location to take kids who are visiting Columbus to!
After paying for our tickets we were given a map with information and we walked a short distance to a small brick building. The building contained a Museum and the entrance to the cave.
The museum was pretty interesting. It gave details of the caverns time line and held Indian artifacts and cave formations with special rocks.
As with most caves the entrance to the cavern had a long set of steep stairs.
The cave it’s self was much larger than I had expected. There was plenty of room to walk around and the ceilings were pretty high. I should have anticipated this given the fact that Indians actually inhabited the cave at some point. Because of this the cavern didn’t have much natural features such as crystallized stalactites and stalagmites. 
All of the nicer images were taken by Ester on her camera! 
This particular formation is called the Indian lover’s bench and is shaped like an arrow head. We spent about 40 minutes in the cave. As with any cave I recommend brining a jacket as the temperature is about 50 degrees all year long. This cave has a large crack in the ceiling that allows new air to circulate the cave regularly. Compared to other caves I have been in this one lacked many typical cave features and had much much more moss and greenery growing around the light fixtures in it. 
After we explored the cave we checked out the petting zoo from the outside and saw some goats, chickens, and deer. I’ve never seen deer at a petting zoo before. With high banks metro park a short drive away we finished the day by roller blading their paved multi purpose trail.
Des Hikes Thru 