United States Show cave
Colossal Cave
18 °C inside, all year.
Bill Morrow · CC BY 2.0
The descent
The entrance, at 1,185 m.
The real relief above Colossal Cave, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.
1,185m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
18°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
113m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
18 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 18 °C here, in January and in August. In June the afternoon reaches 37 °C at the entrance, 18 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket. The best months to escape the heat are from May to September.
- 15°1°Jan
- 17°2°Feb
- 21°5°Mar
- 26°9°Apr
- 31°13°May
- 37°19°Jun
- 34°22°Jul
- 34°21°Aug
- 32°18°Sep
- 27°12°Oct
- 21°6°Nov
- 15°1°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Geologic feature in Pima County, Arizona
Colossal Cave is a show cave in United States. The entrance is at 1,185 m. It has stalactites and stalagmites. It is open to visitors.
Getting there.
- Show cave: open to visitorsUsually with a guided tour; check times and tickets on the official site.
- Vailnearest town · 7.9 km in a straight line
- Parking 430 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Tucson International Airport (TUS)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 29 km in a straight lineCar hire at TUS airport (Tucson)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- 1other cave entrances within 3 km
- 2marked hiking routes within 3 kmArizona Trail, Sky Islands Traverse
- 5car parks within 2 km
- 2information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 1restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- viewpoints within 3 km
- climbing crags within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
- bus stops within 2 km
- campsites within 8 km
- hotels and guesthouses within 8 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Vail7.9 km in a straight line
- Corona de Tucson18 km in a straight line
- Mescal20 km in a straight line
- Tanque Verde23 km in a straight line
In our other atlases
What else is around Colossal Cave.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Peakyas4 mountains within 10 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 15 | 17 | 21 | 26 | 31 | 37 | 34 | 34 | 32 | 27 | 21 | 15 |
| Afternoon | 15 | 17 | 21 | 26 | 31 | 37 | 34 | 34 | 32 | 27 | 21 | 15 |
| Night | 1 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 13 | 19 | 22 | 21 | 18 | 12 | 6 | 1 |
| Rain (mm) | 24 | 21 | 14 | 8 | 4 | 9 | 82 | 65 | 40 | 15 | 16 | 25 |
| Rainy days | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 16 | 18 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| Sun hours/day | 8.0 | 8.7 | 10.4 | 12.2 | 13.3 | 13.4 | 10.2 | 9.9 | 9.8 | 9.9 | 8.8 | 7.7 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 15 | 15 | 1 | 24 | 8.0 |
| Feb | 17 | 17 | 2 | 21 | 8.7 |
| Mar | 21 | 21 | 5 | 14 | 10.4 |
| Apr | 26 | 26 | 9 | 8 | 12.2 |
| May | 31 | 31 | 13 | 4 | 13.3 |
| Jun | 37 | 37 | 19 | 9 | 13.4 |
| Jul | 34 | 34 | 22 | 82 | 10.2 |
| Aug | 34 | 34 | 21 | 65 | 9.9 |
| Sep | 32 | 32 | 18 | 40 | 9.8 |
| Oct | 27 | 27 | 12 | 15 | 9.9 |
| Nov | 21 | 21 | 6 | 16 | 8.8 |
| Dec | 15 | 15 | 1 | 25 | 7.7 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (1,185 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Recent years
Wet years, dry years.
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 71% | 127% | 264% | 36% | — | 29% | 47% | 66% | 11% | 8% | 31% | 43% |
| 2021 | 105% | 3% | 75% | 32% | — | 42% | 220% | 174% | 92% | 36% | 8% | 163% |
| 2022 | 32% | 23% | 84% | 0% | — | 290% | 139% | 209% | 116% | 187% | 12% | 167% |
| 2023 | 191% | 124% | 119% | 0% | — | 0% | 47% | 69% | 38% | 44% | 35% | 142% |
| 2024 | 182% | 223% | 246% | 116% | — | 310% | 88% | 86% | 24% | 2% | 92% | 0% |
| 2025 | 11% | 10% | 91% | 12% | — | 203% | 150% | 107% | 124% | 277% | 187% | 36% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Caves nearby.
Colossal Cave
United States
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 1,185 mEntrance altitude
- 18 °CInside, all year
Coronado cave
United States · 87 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 1,756 mEntrance altitude
- 14 °CInside, all year
Cueva de la Olla
Mexico · 305 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 1,848 mEntrance altitude
- 15 °CInside, all year
Lava River Cave
United States · 381 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 2,351 mEntrance altitude
- 8 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q5149110) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby | Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.
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