Polar Caves Park

Don’t listen to «last tickets will be sold at 5pm» drove 2 hours to get there. Was 4:55 and would not allow us to enter. Very disappointed and the staff didn’t care. Thanks for nothing polar caves you guys are the best.

So we visited in late June. We like to get places as soon as they open and when we got to the caves there were maybe 3 cars in the parking lot which was perfect. It was a cool day with rain in the forecast so we weren’t expecting many people to be there and there weren’t. It was great we were able to explore at our own pace. The caves were so much fun for both my 4 and 10 year old. My boyfriend and I had a blast watching the kids have so much fun and even crawling and squeezing through the caves ourselves. There are bypasses for every cave for the less adventurous. I highly recommend this place to families and even just a group of adults to spend a fun few hours.

This place was great, my kids, 11 and 9 loved it. Caves were fun and challenging. Feeding the deer was also a great experience. The park was in great condition with many informative signs to guide the way and to learn a bit about the region. You could tell the owners took pride in the park. We drove an hour from Alton Bay and it was well worth it.

What a dive this place took. disrepair. two of the animals in the zoo were dead. We found the Lost River to have twice as many and more interesting caves. Signs of poor new ownership are everywhere. the gift shop was filled wall to wall with junk made in china. Some of the items in the sugar house have been on the shelf for years. The price should be cut in half until they put some effort into rebuilding this has been old relic.

The polar caves them were beautiful and amazing to see. There was ice in one of the caves still and it’s July lol. Our group ranged from 2 – 34 in age. The little ones were able to do it with our help. Just a suggestion bring shoes with you! We did this spur of the moment after camping and we only had flip flops and some of the rocks are slippery. We were able to manage but we slid a few times. There was someone in front of us that was a more sedative in working out probably around his late 40’s and he was having a hard time in the caves and going though them. I would suggest that anyone who wants to do it who is a little out of shape can do it.
The sugar house was really cool it had all the old machines showing how they use to make the maple sugar. It opens into a store of everything maple sugar. The nuts were delicious!
I will say for the experience and to see was wonderful but the price to do this I thought was overpriced. It was $ 17.50 for ages 10 and up and $ 11.50 for ages 4 and up. Under age 4 is free. Most places in NH even the state parks don’t have you pay for the kids under 6 years of age. Also the food for animals you pay a quarter for. And I believe it was $ 7.00 for a little bag of rocks to wash off.

So much better then I expected! I was looking for caves/​taverns like the ones in upstate NY. This was nothing like that but a really fun and unexpected activity course so to speak! I do highly recommend you wear appropriate foot apparel. Especially on damp days. This was a blast and I look forward to coming back some time!

A great NH activity for anyone, of any age. The boulders forming Polar Caves are granite, including the largest glacially deposited granite boulder, estimated to weigh in at some 50 million pounds!
The paths here are mainly well maintained wooden pathways. Footing in the caves is on boulders and natural rocks, including some metal stairways and wooden hand rails to aid in navigating your way. Lighting has been added to some of the longer, deeper caves, which helps with finding your way and aids in getting some great photos.
The Gift shop is large and contains a number of well maintained bathrooms. A picnic area exists, so pack a lunch and water as the ups and downs of navigating the cave course will get you thirsty.
We attended on a rainy day and all caves were open, but care was needed as boulders and wooden pathways were somewhat slippery when wet, but a great activity for a rainy day as the caves sheltered us from the rain.
Our group was aged 6 — 75 years old and everyone had an enjoyable time. Well maintained paths, facilities and extremely friendly, informative staff.
We all made it through the «lemon squeezer», except for a female (aged 75, who had no interest in trying).
Give it a try while in NH, you’ll love it!

Overall the experience was worth the trip. It wasn’t super strenuous and I was expecting more DEEP tunnels, it was most short tunnels that pop out after a relatively short distance. Easy enough that there was 3 kids under 3 in our group and they were all able to handle it with the help of an adult. It would be cool if there was an open exploring. The gift shop is nothing spectacular, but most aren’t expected to be. I would recommend it to anything interested in not only geology but native american and american history.

One of the best little outdoor adventures you can have with your kids in NH, and you only need a few hours to do it. Absolutely fun for all ages, and a decent workout too. Lots of stairs and lots of maneuvering your body every which way to get through the caves. Recently they added a new one and it was surprisingly just as great as the rest of them. I figured it would be lame because if it was there all along and if it was that cool it would’ve opened long ago but I was wrong. Definitely a place we want to go back to once a year, and it is always better than we remembered. The challenge of how to get through the caves without bashing your head on an overhang or scraping your back (guilty on both counts)…the relaxing coolness of the dimly lit caves on a hot and humid summer day (in which you will even see ice in at least one of them)…these are a few of the reasons that draw me back. If you haven’t taken your kids here, you must-​they will never forget the Lemon Squeeze or Orange Crush… I certainly remember them from when I was young, and it may even be more fun as a neurotic and no longer carefree adult because it seems like you are attempting the impossible and picturing the firefighters being called in to free your wedged-​in body. Yes, that is fun for me because of the bit of fear factor involved. You can’t see what is on the other side of the Lemon Squeeze, you just have to push through it and hope it is the optical illusion it appears to be and that an adult human body can in fact fit through the narrow slot somehow. All of the caves are named, and they have a good sense of humor about it-​I know one of them is Fat Man’s Misery, and there is Devil’s something or other. There are bypasses for all of the caves for the claustrophobes out there, or those not physically able to complete them, so again this place is great for young and old. They have a nice boardwalk area that meanders through a boulder garden, with lots of informational plaques to bore your kids, they have a how-​maple-​syrup-​is made section with gift shop, and another small trail that gives little nature lessons on what you are looking at, etc.
They also have reindeer and different birds to feed, and a very cool gift shop in the main building which your kids will love-​and they should be able to find something in there that makes them happy for just a few bucks. They also sell sacks of dirt with gems hidden in them for a sluice they have set up, similar to what many other places offer-​again fun for the kids. We usually go on Mother’s Day because Moms gets in free, and it makes for great memories for me and my son that I could never get sitting at some stuffy brunch. I believe they do the same for Father’s Day and Veteran’s Day, which is an incredible value. Highly recommended!

My family (young kids) have been to the caves at the top of Loon and Lost River and they were great — but Polar Caves takes the top position.
These caves are amazing. Some go deep underground (one I believe went about 35 feet down). They seen to twist and turn and have passages that go up and down. These passages were tight, though I am a «big guy» (that’s a nice term for «fatso») I had no problem getting though everything (except maybe the «lemon squeezer» which I didn’t try, though my kids said I could have made it).
Unlike some of the other places however, where you need to often crawl on your hands and knees (or sometimes your stomach) — or climb over rocks to get out — the worst that you had to do here was duck in low-​overhead places, climb ladders, ascend/​descend rock/​wooden stairs.
The caves themselves were amazing — there were several underground «large» chambers. Many of the caves had lights in them and we’re amply eliminated. The man-​made stairs, boardwalks and ladders mad for an easy time — even for the mildly closterphobic.
It’s a bit if a workout for the out-​of-​shape — but that is more actually walking the boardwalks up to the caves — than the caves themselves. Also — the caves can be cold! There can be snow and ice in them even in August!
It’s about a 45 minute trek through the 9(?) caves. You can spend a bit more time seeing some of the animals, rock garden, nature trails, gift shop and picnic area.
Definitely a must-​do for your White Mountains bucket list!

I can only comment on the sluice because that’s what we came here for and, uh, you basically buy a bag that’s a little bigger than your hand and wash it out. Most places give you a giant bucket of dirt so that it takes longer than five second to have fun at the sluice, but not here. The gems were also tiny so that wasn’t much fun either.
I wouldn’t normally leave a review for such a small portion of the park but I looked for more details about whether the sluice was just for kids all over the place and wish someone had written me this review before driving two hours out of the way!
The park itself sounds like a lot of fun, but I don’t have much to say about it because after we sluiced it up for a minute and a half, we went on to our next destination.

Love it here! It wasn’t quite what I was expecting either. All the other caves I’ve been to you either walk through or take a boat ride through. These caves are very low and rocky and you must walk hunched over and almost crawl or squeeze through them. There are about 8 caves along a wooden walking path with some stairs. You have to pay attention to your footing and watch your head — I bumped mine twice and also hit my back on a pointed rock while trying to crawl out the narrow exit of one of them. Some caves further in got crowded and you were stuck in a line between people going too slowly for my liking. It was fairly hot that day and it was very hot inside of some of the caves where there were a lot of people. Definitely not 55 degrees like the website says. I was dripping with sweat and wished I had remembered to bring my water. They do have options to go around and avoid most of the caves if you are afraid, tired, or maybe too old to want to climb around and squeeze inside them. But one or two of them you must go through with no way to avoid them. The final cave has an option of the «Lemon Squeeze» that is 14 inches wide. It looked scary and I was afraid because I don’t like tight spaces, but I went through and it wasn’t that bad after all. I can’t believe some people actually wear flip flops in a place like this. I really wouldn’t recommend that; It’s very easy to trip or stub your toe here. They also have another trail I didn’t get to walk on, a covered bridge and a sugar house that sells drinks, candies and souvenirs. There are also some deer, ducks and pheasants by the gift shop that you can feed.

More fun than I expected! And an awesome work out! Beautiful scenery!

Want a cheap fun day in the woods and something that will challenge the fears of the young and bring out any claustrophobic triggers you never knew you had; this is the place for you. I end up at this place on days when it’s overcast, hot and humid. Which also makes it a little more challenging when navigating through the maze of caves. They have a bunch of shops that sell a bunch of shit you don’t need, but the fudge is pretty damn good.
I had never visited this as a child, but have been then there a few times as an adult. I have enjoyed it everytime, oh and one last thing, don’t wimp out and take the orange crush, have the balls and do the lemon squeeze or you will regret it for the rest of your life…

More challenging than I expected– fun for everyone in our family spanning ages 11 – 45!

Went here with my buddy Joe and the GF on a warm day in July.
Three words of advice: Wear a belt. Athletic shorts seemed like a good idea at the time, but about halfway through the aptly named «Lemon Squeeze» portion of the last cave, while pulling myself up and over a boulder (you can’t bend your knees to climb at first) my shorts somehow got caught and came down to my ankles — which was funny, but not conducive to traversing the remainder of the Lemon Squeeze. I made it through nonetheless.
One hiccup aside, our visit to the Polar Caves taught me two things completely unrelated to belts. First, it’s a lot of fun to climb through underground passages formed by glacial boulders. And second, spelunking is not for the out-​of-​shape. More athletic visitors won’t have much trouble with these caves, but if you’re a sedentary type be prepared to break a sweat. It’s nothing a determined-​albeit-​somewhat-​overweight novice hiker can’t handle, though.
And make sure to get some maple fudge before you leave. Replenishing all the calories you managed to burn off in the caves never tasted so good.

Another must see place during the summer months. We go every year and the kids (including the 17yo) never seem to tire of it. Lots of walking involved. Its a fun, educational event for all.

Great place. I heard this place is much better than Ruggles Mine. We took our five year old and our two year old. The baby backpack wouldn’t fit through all the caves so we left it at the entrance shack. Had a great time exploring the caves. Some of the caves were used by Indians, some during prohibition, and some for the «underground railroad». All were fun, specially the «lemon squeeze» near the end. The geology was interesting too, with flakes of «mica» embedded in the granite cave walls.