Caves

Cutaway illustration of hibernating bats roosting in a cave, with a bearded host wiping his boots on a decontamination mat outside a locked gate.

Bats, White-Nose Syndrome, and Why Grand Canyon Caves Stay Shut

A cold-loving fungus that has killed millions of bats nationally was confirmed in Arizona in 2025, and Grand Canyon’s caves are built to keep it out.

Cutaway illustration of Cave of the Domes inside Horseshoe Mesa with a locked gate at the entrance and hibernating bats on the ceiling

Cave of the Domes: the last open cave, and why bats closed it

The one Grand Canyon cave you didn’t need a permit for survived a hantavirus scare but not white-nose syndrome.

Illustrated cutaway of fictional limestone caverns showing fossils, bats and researchers surveying passages without a real-world map

Grand Canyon caves: mapped systems and documented research

Rampart’s Ice Age fossils, Stanton’s collections, growing Leandras and Double Bopper surveys, and what cave biology and park rules actually establish.

Comic-panel canyon overlook with a host comparing a mythical tomb sketch against a plain park regulations booklet

Grand Canyon Myths vs. Documented Restricted Sites

A 1909 cave myth meets the park’s actual closure rules for caves, mines, cultural resources and working facilities. What is closed, and why?

Labeled cutaway cross-section of a canyon cliff showing a breccia pipe: an ancient collapsed cave on one side filling with ore, a modern mine shaft cut into it on the other, with the host examining both halves.

Grand Canyon Underground: How Caves, Mines and Bats Connect

Karst geology links the park’s caves and its uranium mines directly: many ore-bearing breccia pipes are collapsed ancient caves, excavated twice over.

Cutaway illustration comparing a natural cave passage and a human-dug mine adit side by side in a canyon cliff, with a bearded host inspecting both.

Mines vs. Natural Caves: How Grand Canyon Tells Them Apart

Federal and park rules define caves and mines differently, deciding who needs a permit, why a site is closed, and how NPS counts what is underground.

Treasure-map style comic of the Grand Canyon dotted with closed signs at a radio tower, a bat cave, a uranium mine, and a snail habitat.

What's Actually Off-Limits at the Grand Canyon, and Why

The Grand Canyon publishes a 48-page list of places you can’t go. Uranium, asbestos, bats, a snail, sewage lagoons, tribal land, and zero Egyptian cities: here’s what’s closed and the legal reason why.

Cutaway map illustration of a canyon cliff face showing a permitted researcher entering one labeled cave while dozens of other cave openings nearby are shown blocked and unlabeled

Why almost every Grand Canyon cave is legally off-limits

A 1988 federal law makes cave locations confidential; the park’s own rule goes further and requires a permit just to walk in.