Hi, friends we are back at it again, and by \”it\’, I mean exploring our home state of New Hampshire. This week we went to Polar Caves Park in Rumney, New Hampshire, and explored some caves that were created when these gigantic boulders were placed here sometime in or after the Ice Age.
All those glaciers that came through and melted ended up creating magic up here in the New England area and we are here for it! The Polar Caves Park was founded back in the 1900s by some teenagers.
![\"\"](\"https://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-10-1-1024x768.jpg\")
What a fun thing to find while exploring the woods. I typically just find deer poop when I\’m in the woods off the beaten track. 😂 So, in typical fashion, Resort Enterprises grabbed up the property back in 1935 and now you can pay just shy of $24 per adult to get into this beautiful park that they preserved very well.
You see, we noticed that the boardwalk is placed strategically around the boulders to try to preserve as much of the natural landscape as possible, and they close down parts of the walk when they have wildlife nesting up in the woods to be respectful to wildlife and protect those humans walking near the nesting areas.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-10-1024x768.jpg\")
When you first arrive here, you will show your QR code to the gift shop attendee or buy your tickets. I highly recommend buying Polar Caves Park tickets in advance to ensure you don\’t miss out on a time slot. Most places in New England have a specific number of spots available per time slot! We took the 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm slot and it was perfection!
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-17-768x1024.jpg\")
We had few people in this slot so that we all could take our time chatting along the way, and going slowly to ensure each family unit in the area was able to explore at their own pace. We only got held up one time and that was at the end in the lemon squeezy cave part. It\’s a tight cave, so it\’s no wonder that we had to pause a little to wait for the guests ahead of us to have time to get through.
But, you do go through the caves with strangers at your own pace. If you\’re not into strangers all up in your space, you can wait and space the walking time between each group of strangers. It\’s all self-paced.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-4-1024x768.jpg\")
Before you get to the cave entrance area, where the staff has you listen to a short safety speech about the caves, and how each cave does have a way around it. The boardwalk around each cave is nice, but the inside of the caves are even cooler! (literally COOLER)
Before I booked our space at Polar Caves Park in New Hampshire, my son said it looked like it would either be boring or awesome. Thankfully, it was awesome! You can see our family rank below at the end of this blog post.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-1-768x1024.jpg\")
Before you get to the cave entrance, you can feed the deer and the ducks. I will be honest, the ducks wanted little to do with any of us or our cracked corn. The deer, on the other hand, were more than happy to taste our delicious treats.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-3-1024x768.jpg\")
You can buy a bag of deer feed at the gift shop before you come to this spot, it\’s the first building you go into. The bags of food are $2 each as of the time of our visit. We used a bit before the cave exploration, and saved some for afterward.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-15-1024x769.jpg\")
Our youngest teen went through most of the caves without us. Some were so narrow and short that my poor knees wouldn\’t have been able to bend down low enough. So I skipped quite a few, however, I did explore a few of them.
The few that I skipped? My son said I could have done so maybe next time I will try them out. If you\’re claustrophobic, please don\’t do this! The first cave I could have explored but my panic started to set in and I wasn\’t ready, however, I told myself to smarten up for the next cave and chilled my mind out to be at peace in the moment and get through it.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-6-1024x768.jpg\")
After that? It was much easier to get through them. While the caves are small in some cases, they do have quite a bit of airflow as none are really sealed tight.
In some of the caves I even ended up sitting on my butt to go down the rocky stairs. The caves do have uneven surfaces, so they warn you to please take it slowly! I had a lot of fun, though to be honest! I had more fun than I was expecting exploring the caves.
![\"\"](\"http://hotnewengland.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Polar-Caves-Park-Exploration-with-Teen-4-1-1024x768.jpg\")
After we were done with the caves, we took the Boulder Maze portion of Polar Caves Park and had a blast walking around that boardwalk to the end.
Overall, we are really glad we ventured to Polar Caves Park on this fine Saturday in May 2024. It was a wonderful time. It cost about $77 to get in, $9 for my little souvenir, $2 for the deer feed, and maybe a quarter of a tank of gas.
Another thing we noticed is that the bugs weren\’t all that bad in the area! After dealing with black flies and mosquitoes at home, we were pleasantly surprised that the Polar Caves Park didn\’t have as many flying insects in your face so you could actually enjoy the time there. With that being said, it is an outdoor event, so if you want to, maybe put on some for of insect repellent just to be proactive before you go up the stairs to start your fun!
Go ahead and have a look at Polar Caves Park website to get on their schedule!
Family Rank: 8.5
We were all pretty much set on the 8.5 ranking. We loved the experience, and while we would have loved to get it a 10, we are pretty critical and have yet to give one of our New England adventures a 10. I think that SC Monster Truck Madness was the highest ranking we have had yet.