United States Paulo Ordoveza from Washington, DC · CC BY 2.0
The descent
The entrance, at 297 m.
The real relief above Luray Caverns, measured on the Copernicus model every 30 m, and the cave going down at the same vertical scale.
The depth is the one published by those who explored it; the shape of the galleries is a sketch, not a survey. No depth has been published for this cave yet.
297m
Entrance altitude
from the 30 m relief model
13°C
Inside, all year
the yearly average outside, at the entrance
33m
Rock above
the highest point within 1.5 km
Inside and outside
13 °C inside, all year.
Deep inside, a cave keeps the average temperature of the year outside: about 13 °C here, in January and in August. In July the afternoon reaches 31 °C at the entrance, 18 °C warmer than inside: take a jacket. The best months to escape the heat are from June to August.
- 4°-5°Jan
- 6°-4°Feb
- 12°0°Mar
- 18°6°Apr
- 23°12°May
- 28°17°Jun
- 31°19°Jul
- 30°18°Aug
- 26°14°Sep
- 19°8°Oct
- 13°1°Nov
- 6°-3°Dec
Outside: afternoon and night averages for 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) brought to the altitude of the entrance. Inside: the yearly average, which deep parts of a cave keep. Near the entrance it follows the weather a little.
Landform
Luray Caverns is a show cave in United States. The entrance is at 297 m. It has stalactites and stalagmites and several entrances and long galleries. It is open to visitors.
Getting there.
- Show cave: open to visitorsHours in OpenStreetMap: Mo-Su 09:00-17:00 · ticket requiredOfficial site↗
- Luraynearest town · 2.1 km in a straight line
- Parking 90 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport (SHD)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 57 km in a straight lineCar hire at CHO airport (Charlottesville)Discover Cars · sponsored link↗
Plan the visit
Guided tours, a bed nearby, a car.
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
From above.
The ground above the cave, with the relief shaded, the line of the section and what people have mapped around the entrance.
N
1.5 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6.0 × 6.0 km, north up. The line is the section above. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Around the entrance.
- 1other cave entrances within 3 kmLuray Caverns
- 1climbing crags within 3 kmThe Rope Adventure Park at Luray Caverns
- 93car parks within 2 km
- 5information boards and visitor centres within 3 km
- 8campsites within 8 kmJellystone Park Luray, Spacious Skies Campgrounds - Shenandoah Valley, Luray RV Resort on Shenandoah River and 5 more
- 50hotels and guesthouses within 8 kmHillside Motel, hook, line and sinker, Rock tavern river camp and 47 more
- 12restaurants and cafés within 3 km
- springs within 2 km
- sinkholes within 3 km
- caving clubs and spots within 15 km
- viewpoints within 3 km
- marked hiking routes within 3 km
- named waterfalls within 4 km
- bus stops within 2 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, around the entrance. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Luray2.1 km in a straight line
- Stanley10 km in a straight line
- New Market16 km in a straight line
- Mount Jackson16 km in a straight line
- Edinburg19 km in a straight line
- Shenandoah23 km in a straight line
- Woodstock24 km in a straight line
In our other atlases
What else is around Luray Caverns.
The river at the entrance, the waterfalls, the lakes, the mountains and volcanoes above, the canyons, beaches and islands nearby — from our other atlases.
Peakyas18 mountains within 10 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, NOAA, OpenStreetMap). Links open when each site is online.
Month by month
The weather outside, at the entrance.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon | 4 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 23 | 28 | 31 | 30 | 26 | 19 | 13 | 6 |
| Afternoon | 4 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 23 | 28 | 31 | 30 | 26 | 19 | 13 | 6 |
| Night | -5 | -4 | 0 | 6 | 12 | 17 | 19 | 18 | 14 | 8 | 1 | -3 |
| Rain (mm) | 60 | 63 | 74 | 93 | 114 | 110 | 101 | 94 | 104 | 87 | 74 | 77 |
| Rainy days | 8 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 16 | 13 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 8 |
| Sun hours/day | 4.5 | 5.3 | 6.0 | 6.9 | 7.1 | 8.3 | 8.1 | 7.4 | 6.5 | 5.8 | 5.2 | 4.2 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 13 | 13 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 11 |
| Afternoon | Afternoon | Night | Rain (mm) | Sun hours/day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 4 | 4 | -5 | 60 | 4.5 |
| Feb | 6 | 6 | -4 | 63 | 5.3 |
| Mar | 12 | 12 | 0 | 74 | 6.0 |
| Apr | 18 | 18 | 6 | 93 | 6.9 |
| May | 23 | 23 | 12 | 114 | 7.1 |
| Jun | 28 | 28 | 17 | 110 | 8.3 |
| Jul | 31 | 31 | 19 | 101 | 8.1 |
| Aug | 30 | 30 | 18 | 94 | 7.4 |
| Sep | 26 | 26 | 14 | 104 | 6.5 |
| Oct | 19 | 19 | 8 | 87 | 5.8 |
| Nov | 13 | 13 | 1 | 74 | 5.2 |
| Dec | 6 | 6 | -3 | 77 | 4.2 |
Averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, brought to the altitude of the entrance (297 m) with the standard lapse rate. Not a forecast.
Photographs
Inside and around.
Recent years
Wet years, dry years.
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A dry year means a lower river and hotter rock; a wet one, more water in the gorge.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 114% | 87% | 48% | 132% | 53% | 68% | 65% | 169% | 56% | 141% | 124% | 119% |
| 2021 | 62% | 98% | 62% | 64% | 43% | 77% | 50% | 126% | 105% | 83% | 37% | 12% |
| 2022 | 74% | 55% | 61% | 61% | 93% | 58% | 85% | 80% | 67% | 59% | 122% | 88% |
| 2023 | 59% | 108% | 57% | 88% | 41% | 90% | 94% | 43% | 96% | 25% | 79% | 146% |
| 2024 | 224% | 81% | 95% | 63% | 84% | 36% | 68% | 161% | 188% | 18% | 52% | 85% |
| 2025 | 83% | 144% | 49% | 55% | 180% | 110% | 178% | 38% | 49% | 63% | 33% | 51% |
130% or more: wet month 70% or less: dry month
Caves nearby.
Luray Caverns
United States
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 297 mEntrance altitude
- 13 °CInside, all year
Shenandoah Caverns
United States · 17 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 314 mEntrance altitude
- 12 °CInside, all year
Endless Caverns
United States · 18 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 350 mEntrance altitude
- 12 °CInside, all year
Skyline Caverns
United States · 35 km
- —Depth
- —Galleries
- 187 mEntrance altitude
- 13 °CInside, all year
Where these figures come from
| Name, type, published depth and length, visitors | Wikidata (Q1476610) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| The relief above, the entrance altitude, the section and the 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Entrances, springs, sinkholes, opening hours and what is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Rivers, waterfalls, lakes, mountains, canyons, beaches and islands nearby | Coastya, Lakeyas, Peakyas, Cascadyas, Islandyas, Riveryas |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.
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Every viewpoint with its real 360° panorama: the peaks you can name, how far you see and where the sun sets.Coming soonVisit 
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