I loved the Oregon caves! It was a magical experience!
I visited on a Saturday in July. My companion and I hadn’t reserved a tour. We ended up calling the Illinois Valley Visitor Center - they gave us a heads up about available tours and timings. So, we drove to the Illinois Valley Visitor center (which is on the way to the main Oregon Caves visitor center from where the tours start) to make reservations for the discovery tour. You can purchase the tour tickets here and then proceed to the caves.
Since self-guided tours are not permitted(and for good reason), do plan for and get reservations in advance if you can!
The route from the Illinois Valley visitor center to the caves is only 15-20 miles - but takes an hour due to the uphill winding road.
The caves themselves were awesome!! The stalagmites, stalactites, columns, draperies, bacon ribbons, etc. were so beautiful! The tour itself was super informative too! A shout out to the rangers here - they were awesome and shared very interesting geological information throughout the tour. My favorite parts of the tour were the ghost room, lost paradise and the part where the ranger turned off the lights to give a feel of how dark it truly is down there!! 😅
While we didn’t have time to explore other trails in here, the whole Siskiyou forest around looked gorgeous!!