Thursday, July 15, 2010

Luray Caverns .............

Yesterday we decided to tour Luray Caverns. They are located in the town of Luray, which is in the Shenandoah Valley in the northern part of Virginia. Both Hubby and I had visited them on school trips in elementary school, but had not been back since. I'm glad we decided to go. It was the perfect way to spend a hot afternoon - in a cool cavern viewing some majestic rock formations. If you have never been, it is well worth your time.





This is called the Double Column. It is 47 feet tall and is composed of both stalactites and stalagmites. The area it is in is called Giant's Hall. The ceiling is over 60 feet in height.






In this picture you can see some of the formations that are called totem poles. I thought they looked like carvings made in wood. If you looked closely, you could see all types of shapes in the rocks.





I love these formations that look like fringe or draperies. It takes about 120 years to form one cubic inch. It's hard to comprehend how many years it has taken for these caverns to form.





There are different colors in the rock. Some are white and almost translucent and some have more of a yellow or gold cast. It depends on what impurites from the soil have seeped down.





This is called Dream Lake. The bottom of the photo is a reflection in the water of the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The water is not deep, only 18 to 20 inches at it's deepest point.

5 comments:

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

This reminds me of Howes Caverns in upstate New York where we took the kinds one summer when they were young. Fun and so cool and refreshing on a hot summer day. Lovely photos.

KathyA said...

Beautiful and amazing, aren't they? Can't tell you the number of times we passed there on the way to or back from visiting our youngest at college, but never stopped in.

rachel said...

How absolutely fabulous! Thank you.

CountryDew said...

How was the walk? I would love to visit them but have terribly bad knees that makes climbing steps and steep hills questionable.

Snippety Gibbet said...

Luray is fun. I contemplated taking my Granddaughter when she was visiting from California. jan