Grand Caverns

On Thursday we got up early and drove to Grottos, Virginia to visit Grand Caverns.  While we were there we learned that it is the oldest show cave in the United States.

Grand Caverns was discovered in 1804 by Bernard (Barnette) Weyer while trying to retrieve one of his traps. Weyers Cave opened for tours in 1806, making it the oldest continually operating show cave in the U.S. The caverns were also called the Grottoes of the Shenandoah until named Grand Caverns in 1926.  Grand Caverns was declared a National Natural Landmark in 1973. In 1974 the caverns and surrounding acreage was gifted to the Upper Valley Regional Park Authority by its then owner Gladys Kellow and became known as Grand Caverns Regional Park. On October 1, 2009, the Town of Grottoes took possession of its namesake caverns, and consequently, the UVRPA dissolved.
--from Grand Caverns website

Right next to the parking lot is a small (historic) structure that houses the ticket sales and gift shop.

 I found it interesting that they have a sluice out front.  I've seen many of these as we have traveled.

 The gift shop wasn't too large.

 After obtaining our tickets (the kids were free and we had a Groupon deal for the adults) we headed up the hill.

 At the top of the hill we spotted this structure that contained a small museum and the entrance to the cave itself.

 Once you walk under the second story you can easily see the stairs leading up.

 At the top you enter a large room with many displays.

Along the outside wall was a large table with many items that could be touched--this was an excellent idea to help engage adults as well as kids since inside the cage you are cautioned to touch none of the growths as the oils produced by human hands can cause extensive damage.

These coins were taken out of the cave once it was realized they were causing damage due to minerals leaching out.

 I'm not sure if this otter was a local specimen or not, but it was interesting to see.

 There were also several taxidermy birds.

 A side room off of the main room contained an exhibit about the nature of caves in Virginia.

 It is sad that many people have inadvertently harmed caves due to dropping things into sinkholes or letting spills run off into underground reservoirs

 I knew about the Megalonyx jeffersoni named after Thomas Jefferson but didn't know that it was discovered in a cave in West Virginia.

I knew that Kentucky was a huge Karst region, but seeing it on a map like this is very useful to understanding the scale.

I've never heard this shortcut before for stalactites and stalagmites.  I've heard that stlactites hang from the ceiling and that stlagmites connect to the ground.

When I was almost done looking at the exhibit we heard the guide calling to say the tour was about to begin.  Apart from two other people it was only our extended family that took part in the tour, the first one of the day.  Our guide's name was Daniel and he did a great job of explaining the cave.  Before we started into the cave he explained where we would be going   The historic areas of the cave are everything on the top and left side of the map.  In 2004 a massive new section was discovered (detailed on the lower right of the map), but they can only be explored via a long series of very narrow tunnels and so aren't suitable to be visited on standard tours.

Just a few steps inside the cave we started to see formations.

Our guide explained the various animals found in the "zoo."


We saw a number of shields throughout the cave.  They're rather interesting formations that look like huge discs connected to the cave walls or ceilings.  According to some information I found about another cave (in Utah) they're not quite as rare as was once thought, but we don't know for sure how they form.

Shields are the formation that Lehman Caves is best known for. They are not as rare as was once thought, and have been found in at least 80 caves in the United States. Caves that have shields often have them in large numbers. Lehman Caves has an unusually large concentration of shields, more than 300. Shields consist of two round or oval parallel plates with a thin medial crack between them. The medial crack is thought to be an important clue to their formation. Shields tend to form in caves with highly fractured limestone (like Lehman). Shields grow at all sorts of angles from the ceiling, wall, and floor of the cave.
--from Great Basin NP website

This group of stalactites looks a bit like an upside down city.

 When you look at them via a shallow reflecting pool on the ground they look even more like a cityscape, which is why the pool was installed.

 This line likely shows where where water levels once were in the cave.

The rainbow room is artificially lit, but still a beautiful spot.  You can't see it well in this photo, but a part of the formation that looks like a lower level is actually another shallow reflecting pool.

Dante's Inferno used to actually be a spot on tours, but reportedly a former cave owner found a geode in the ground and so he stopped access to the room to hide the fact that he was mining the geode.  Instead he helped to start rumors about ghosts being seen in the room.  The current setup illuminates the access to the room in red to help perpetuate the legend.

At one point our guide had us turn all lights off and he held up just a candle to demonstrate how much light they could give off.  Then he blew the candle out so we could directly experience the total darkness of the cave.

 Cathedral Hall is one of the largest rooms in the cave (at least in the portion that you can tour).  The formation in the center of the room is George Washington's Ghost, which looks small when you first see the room.

As you walk further in and walk down you realize how tall it is.

The room really was impressive with many different formations visible in the large space.

You can here some of what our guide explained about the room here.

At one point water was constantly dripping so a pot had been placed underneath it so that you could feel the temperature of the water.

This formation is named Jackson's horse after Stonewall Jackson from a time when his troops visited the cave in 1862 after some battles that happened near the cave.

You can hear what the guide said by watching this video.

A bit further on we were instructed to look up and we were able to see a couple hundred feet up as we were at the bottom of the highest part of the cave.

The shield room contains a large number of shield formations.

In fact the shield room has more shields than any part of the public path, but the new area of the cave has far more shields.


The oyster shells are a pair of very large conjoined shields at the end of the public tour--well they're the point at which you're as far in the cave as you will go, but the tour isn't over as you have to go back the way you came in order to exit.


The room off of the Cathedral Hall is called Martha Washington's Dressing Room because it is so close to Washington's Ghost.

These formations were inside the dressing room and were quite fascinating to see though I don't recall the exact name.

We saw several examples of graffiti on our way out.

Of course nobody should carve or write their names on formations like this today.

However once such markings get old enough they're considered historic instead of being vandalism.

This signature appears to be from the 1860s.

We ended up at the cave's original entrance, which is now the exit for guided tours.  Our guide explained a bit more about the original discovery of the cave.  He didn't stay too long as people were getting cold.  Since the area was fairly close to the outside it was much closer to the above ground temperature than to the nearly constant 54º of the cave's interior.


Our last stop was just inside the building where our guide used a map of just the older part of the cave to explain our route.

All in all we had a fun time touring the cave.  If you're near the area and have time I'd definitely suggest that you check out Grand Caverns in Virginia.  All of the images above and a number more are in this album.

~Matt