Exploring Oregon Caves National Monument – 2TravelDads

Exploring Oregon Caves National Monument - 2TravelDads

If you’ve not hear of Oregon Caves National Monument before, that’s not surprising. There are other, more famous caverns in the National Parks system and even outside of it, such as Lewis and Clark Caverns, but these Caves are really something special. From the amazing Chateau to the really well put together Visitors Center, a visit to Oregon Caves National Monument is a great adventure for family travel or solo road trip around the state.

Although this attraction is relatively unknown, it is really an amazing gem of a park. If for nothing else, go experience the calm of the mossy forest, quiet streams, waterfalls and beautiful rustic architecture of the Chateau and Visitors Center. It’s one of the most beautiful, albeit difficult to get to, places in the Beaver State and it needs to be on your bucket list!

Where is Oregon Caves National Monument

Like we said in our article about the Chateau, getting to Oregon Caves National Monument can be done two ways: coming from the coast or from Grants Pass and the Interstate. Traveling from I-5 and heading west is a short half hour to Cave Junction and then the winding drive through the hills. Wherever you’re coming from, the drive and time you’ll spend there is well worth it.

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Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument – Free Wheel Drive

Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument - Free Wheel Drive

The Grand Staircase Escalante is huge! It’s bigger than the Great Salt Lake. The largest lake in the U.S. that’s not a great lake.

A short 45 minute drive from Bryce Canyon is the enormous Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. It spans from the eastern boundaries of Bryce Canyon to Lake Powell Recreation Area.

To be honest we knew very little about what to do at the monument. Luckily we passed by an open visitor center on the way and a friendly staff member gave us more than enough information to keep us busy for weeks. We planned for about 4 full days including a day to sit at our campsite and rest. With our time we were only able to explore a section of the far Northwest corner and the far Northeast corner.

This vast land is made of canyons, plateaus, dessert life, rivers, waterfalls, ancient ruins, and dinosaur bones.

GSENM is apart of the Grand Staircase, duh. A vast area of land that stretches South from Bryce Canyon to Zion to The Grand Canyon forming a sort of sequence of steps. GSENM encompasses several of these “steps” aka layers of sedimentary rock. Refer to the photo below for a visual or our last post.

By Laura and Camrin – Full Story at Free Wheel Drive

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