Tennessee's Scenic State Park In Clarksville Offers Hiking Trails, Cave Tours, And Prehistoric Art

Less than 50 miles northwest of Nashville, Tennessee, you can hike trails, explore a cave, and see incredible prehistoric art dating back to the 14^th century. Dunbar Cave State Park and Natural Area is located in Clarksville, a town near the Kentucky border known for artsy vibes, unique shops, and nature. While modern-day people visit to hike or picnic, this was a sacred place for the Mississippian people who lived in the area hundreds of years ago. They believed that the cave was not just a cave, but a portal to the underworld. Some of their art reflects this belief.

Dunbar Cave State Park has more than 3 miles of trails (PDF). All are family-friendly, ranging from 0.4 to 2.2 miles. The just-under-a-half-mile Resort Trail (which AllTrails calls Dunbar Cave Lake Trail) follows the edge of Swan Lake, where you can watch migrating waterfowl in winter, and enjoy a blast of cool air from the cave mouth in summer. What AllTrails dubs the Dunbar Cave Recovery Loop — officially a combination of the park's Grassland Trail, Resort Trail, and Dunbar's Path — is a forested 2.2-mile loop which ranks as moderate. It takes you along a lake where you might spot turtles, foxes, muskrats, turkeys, and deer. A shorter loop can be made by taking the Dunbar Cave Short Loop, which also starts near Swan Lake. It's mostly shaded, with some rooty sections and the chance to glimpse pileated woodpeckers. The park website has free guides to local wildflowers, plants, and birds available for download, with more coming soon.

Dunbar Cave State Park offers tours seasonally from May through September. On the one-hour Enter the Underworld tour, visitors see a section of the large cave focusing on indigenous people's connection with the cavern. Because this is a sacred place, photography is not allowed. You'll need a flashlight and shoes with good tread. Expect occasional crouching and slippery surfaces. Some Tripadvisor reviewers were disappointed that the tour wasn't longer, and also warned that it's not for the mobility-impaired. Children must be five or older. Tickets cost $18 for ages 13 and up, and $13 for kids 5 to 12. A couple of more rugged tours are also available.

In 2025, historic flooding damaged the cave and closed it for the season. At the time of writing, it's expected to reopen in 2026, but check on the current status before driving out there. It's a good idea to reserve your ticket in advance anyway, because sometimes the tours sell out.

If the cave tour sounds too claustrophobic and slippery for you — or if it's still closed due to flooding — the virtual reality tour is available year-round during visitor center hours. Wearing VR headsets, guests experience a 45-minute version of the Enter the Underworld tour. The recommended age is 10 and up and the VR tour costs $9. If you're prone to motion sickness, you might want to skip it. Those who enjoy Dunbar might also want to check out Sevierville's Forbidden Cavern, another of Tennessee's mesmerizing caves. 

Archeologists have found evidence of people visiting Dunbar Cave as far back as 10,000 years ago. The rock art dates back 800 years and includes charcoal pictographs and petroglyphs carved into limestone. It can be hard to tell the two types of rock art apart, but pictographs are painted on the stone while petroglyphs are carved or scratched into the rock's surface. Some are abstract forms, while others represent humans or animals. A lot of the art is concentric circles and geometric shapes. Archeologists believe that Indigenous people considered the cave a sacred space during the Mississippian period, which spans from about 500 to 1,000 years ago. They suspect that the hybrid human-animal figures depicted were part of a spiritual practice.

The 2025 flooding was so bad that bats drowned and mud caked on the ceiling. Art lovers and archeologists worried about damage to the cave paintings. Fortunately, scientific tests run by the state's Division of Archaeology show no signs of damage when compared to high-resolution photos of the art from a decade ago. But it will take a lot of restoration work to repair park infrastructure and clean the paintings. 

Dunbar Cave State Park and Reserve is open from 8:00 a.m. until sunset. It's just one of many natural places that draw people to Tennessee. Another top pick is Normandy Lake, where you can camp, hike, and fish between Chattanooga and Nashville.