Ruby Falls, TN

Many friends were surprised that even though we have lived in the Atlanta for more than 20 years, this fall was the first time that we visited Ruby Falls Ruby Falls is located in Chattanooga, TN and is about 1 hour and half from our house. We have gone many times to Chattanooga for day trips and overnight trips, but we had never visited the falls. We have visited other caves and caverns in the past, and this was the most expensive one to date. We visited the Tuskaleechee Caverns, TN and I share them here, and I share caves we visited in the Republic of Georgia here.

What makes Ruby Falls special is the fall at the end of the path. It is the tallest underground waterfall open to the public in the United States (145 feet tall). You descend down 260 feet in an elevator before walking through a large paved path where you can observe different formations included some pretty stalagmites and stalagmites. We really think that the price is geared for tourism and was probably twice it should be, costing around $30 per adult.

I am glad we visited as I have always found rock formations fascinating, but I would not go back for a return visit. I enjoyed the history presentation, but would have liked the guide to present it instead of the video and audio they used to share the information.

You can read about the history of Ruby Falls on their website, here. It is always interesting when someone finds something unexpectedly: Leo Lambert was looking for a large cave, the Lookout Mountain cave when his team encountered a void in the rock and followed it through small tunnels to find a large cave opening and waterfall.

I am not sure I would enjoy spelunking and cave crawling, but I do enjoy exploring caves that have been deemed safe and made accessible to the lay person. We had hoped to visit some caves in Costa Rica, but it ended being far from our resort through crazy mountain roads and I was not anxious for more scary driving, so we passed on that opportunity.

There were some beautiful formations and each is so unique. It is fun to see how accurate the names are to what the formation looks like: elephant foot, angel wings, tobacco leaves, bacon and chips were a few of the names.

The lighting does make for some pretty pictures!

A bientôt!

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