Cave of The Winds, ColoradoManitou Springs, Colorado
Colorado cave destination
Cave of the Winds
Manitou Springs cave park with a family-friendly Discovery Tour, a darker Haunted Lantern Tour through narrower passages, and a larger Williams Canyon adventure setup that competes for time with the cave itself.
MetricCave review status
Last reviewedMar 22, 2026
Reviewed byMetricCave Editorial
Review date reflects the latest MetricCave check of the planning details on this page.
Manitou Springs, Colorado
Cave of the Winds works better when you think of it as a mountain park with cave tours at the center, not as a pure show-cave stop. The underground routes are the core attraction, but canyon views, rides, ropes-course activity, and the broader Manitou Springs setting all compete for your time. That changes the planning question from “Should we go?” to “Which cave tour fits the day we actually want?”
For most visitors, the Discovery Tour is the right default. Current official pages describe a lit guided route through 15 rooms, about half a mile of concrete walkways, and roughly 200 stairs. The Haunted Lantern Tour is the sharper alternative: longer, darker, narrower, muddier, and built more around folklore and atmosphere than around the family geology walk. That split gives Cave of the Winds a clearer personality than a lot of tourist caves with only one public route.
The History & Geology
Cave of the Winds has a public-history story the official site still tells well. Current cave-tour pages say George and John Pickett discovered the entrance in 1880 while exploring Williams Canyon, and public tours began in February 1881. That makes this one of the longer-running cave attractions in the country, which still matters because the park leans into that history rather than hiding it behind newer rides and packages.
The geology gives the cave more depth than the amusement-park branding might suggest. Official learning pages say the limestone began forming almost 500 million years ago during the Ordovician period, and that the cave-forming dissolution process began roughly 4 to 7 million years ago. In practical visitor terms, that means the cave is not just a scenic tunnel but a long-developed karst system whose rooms, passages, and flowstone read differently from a more recent lava-tube or mine-like stop.
The cave's known layout has also grown over time. Official and project material ties the commercial route to the wider Manitou Grand Caverns system in Williams Canyon, with later excavation revealing spaces like Silent Splendor. That helps explain why Cave of the Winds can offer both a conventional show-cave tour and a more original-feeling lantern route through less improved passages.
