I'm generally not a fan of the commercialization of natural wonders. I understand that people want to be able to visit them, but the more people that access the site, the more likely it is to be destroyed. That said, a couple of very commercial sites in eastern Tennessee have caught my attention and I diced today it would be a good time to explore them. The first is Ruby Falls, which is inside the Lookout Mountain Cave just southwest of Chattanooga. In my recent rips north to Illinois and Kentucky for this tourist trap bombard passersby. Lets see what it's all about.
I arrived at the visitor facility well in advance of my scheduled tour time, but as I knew tickets were sold out today, I didn't bother trying to switch to an earlier tour. After about thirty minutes of wandering around the gift shop, I headed to tour's starting point and was quickly joined by the rest of the group. While the facility is making efforts to ensure social distancing, many of the tourists here simply ignore the protocols.
In several groups, we descend into the depths via an elevator and then reconvene in the man-made tunnels through the mountain. To be fair, these tunnels were the original points that the cave's original explorers used, but they have been blasted and cut to be much wider to allow for easy accessibility.
Our tour guide, Desiree, is a young chatty college student and while extremely friendly, she is also far too talkative. As we make our way through the narrow passages, we see a number of interesting cave features, such as the usual flow-stones, stalagmites, stalactites, etc. Some of the features have been granted names for their resemblance to animals and name-tags marking them as such. The turtle, elephant's foot, the fish, the hen, and many others. It's all very "touristy", but the formations are beautiful and while some damage has been sustained from visitors, it's far from the worst I've seen. Additionally, several areas have had colored lights placed behind them to provide an eerie aura.
After about a quarter of a mile, we come to an area from which we can hear the waterfall echoing through the cave. We have to wait for an earlier tour group to vacate the chamber, before we can enter, but it only takes a couple of minutes before we walk through the final passage and are greeted by the gorgeous Ruby Falls.
From a small passage near the natural ceiling of the room, a small by steady stream of water drops 145 feet before landing in a small pool, which then feeds the small trickle of an underground creek we have occasionally seen glimpses of on our way here. The waterfall is quite stunning and from what our tour guide says, it actually carved the room we are currently in. It's obvious that some blasting has taken place to enlarge the room, and I can also see mineral deposits high up on the cave walls where I hypothesize the water level reached and stood for long periods of time in the distant past.
After about ten minutes taking in this beautiful natural wonder, Desiree gathers the group and we head back towards the elevator along a similar path to the one we entered on. With a quick ride back to the surface, the experience is complete. While the waterfall was quite beautiful, I maintain my earlier statement about over-commercialization of such places.
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