Merrimac Caverns info (St. Louis, Springfield, Olivette: home, cost , adult)

[oncesir]

Im gonna be returning home for a summer visit in a few weeks and would like some info(hours/driving directions) to the caverns. Ive googled it with no luck. Thanks for any info.

[RhondaHMo]

Here's a couple of sites:

Meramec Caverns

Meramec State Park - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

My hubby and son have driven out there hiking for the day, but we haven't been though there since we've been back home either. I loved that place as a kid!

-Rhonda
Olivette, MO

[RickMG]

Stanton is just off Hwy. 44 less than a 45 minute drive from Highways 270 & 44. You're making me miss the place now.

[ShadowCaver]

Please, if you do head that way, I highly strongly recommend going just a tad further [~30 minutes] west, and stopping instead, if not also, at:
Onondaga Cave State Park - Home - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

[northbayeric]

ShadowCaver is right. Stanton and Leasburg are both off I-44, a short distance apart. Meramec Caverns gets all the publicity, but you've really got to visit Onondaga Cave as well. I visited it for the first time just last year, and the formations are even more unique than Meramec Caverns! Why settle for your garden variety stalactites, stalagmites and columns when Onondaga has even more great stuff to see?

Meramec has a gigantic entrance, and they put on a superb show at the end of the tour. Let me leave it at that, because you just have to see both Meramec and Onondaga for yourselves. Also at Meramec, pay the extra money before or after the cave tour to take the boat ride on the Meramec River. We in California have some good caves, including Crystal Caverns in Sequoia National Park. But there's a reason Missouri is known as the Cave State in addition to the Show-Me State! Missouri Caves Association

[sixtwobaldguy]

Shaw Garden is also out that way which is worth a look. It takes forever to view the whole area as much of it can only be explored by foot. However, the garden near the mansion is worth a look.

[radmohunter]

Just to let you know, in Onondaga Cave State Park is a little known cave that is only open on the summer weekends and you have to ask the Park Ranger when you enter the park if it is going to have tours. It is all natural light, meaning only flashlights. It is a GREAT little cave and one of the most beautiful I have seen in Missouri. And I have been to EVERY commercial cave in the state and most of them in Arkansas, Indiana, Virginia & Tennessee. Here is a Link to the cave, Cathedral Cave:

Onondaga Cave State Park - Cave Tours - Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites, MoDNR

Try it, you will love it !!!

~~ radmohunter ~~

[northbayeric]

Radmohunter, thanks for the great tip! If I could ask you, without getting too off-topic, have you ever been inside Round Spring Cavern down in Shannon County? In 2003 I went to the area and saw the cave entrance, but didn't get to go on the tour. It sounds like the flashlight-only tour (as opposed to Meramec's big production) would give you a great alternative cave experience!

[ShadowCaver]

Eric - RSC is indeed worth the trip, esp. for anyone desiring a more realistic taste for what we actually experience as cavers, w/o all the BS of light and lies of too many commercial caves. Tours are at 10am and 2pm, every day, Memorial through Labor Day; cost is a very reasonable $5 per adult, $2 for kids. Can call five-seven-three; eight-five-eight, three-two-nine-seven for more info...

Also while in that area, might also check out some of the other wonders as found here: Alley Mill, Alley Spring, Round Spring Cave, Akers Ferry, Welch, Pulltite, Two Rivers, Cave Spring, Highway 19, Eminence Missouri

[conovercourt]

Just get on I 44 anywhere in Missouri, between Springfield and St. Louis. Great forests have been sacrificed to assault the driver with every possible factoid about Meremec Caxerns ("Jesse James Hideout!!!") I also prefer Onondaga Cave (Missouri's largest!!!)