Yesterday’s post about Forestville State Park was slightly dishonest in that it is actually called Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park. I broke them a part into 2 posts because they truly are two unique areas that fall very close to each other geographically.

A few miles down the road from the main state park that contains historic Forestville, following the signs will lead you down a gravel road that gives you a feeling you are just being lead out into the woods never to return. After a few miles down this gravel road you are informed you are entering a state park and pop out of the woods to see a good sized parking lot with an interpretive center. This center is dedicated to the Mystery Cave sitting several hundred feet behind it. After looking around sparse artifacts and information about the caves your only real option is to sign up (and pay for) a cave tour. What makes this so neat is there is a variety of tours, stretching from an ADA compliant tour that takes and hour that has concrete/metal paths that allow for strollers, all the way to a 4 hour tour that allows you to go on a guided tour deeper into the 13 known miles of the cave system.

We ended up going on the short hour tour, with the longer tours requiring some planning and reservations. Overall, I would say it is a great way to get out of the Twin Cities for a day and visit a place that is naturally 48 degrees to cool off and find out more about these neat caves in southeast Minnesota.