We found that there are several caverns in the area of Luray, VA that are open for tours to the public.  We went to two of them, Luray itself which is the best-known, and Endless Caverns which is on the site of the RV Park where we stayed.  This is a cavern and we were the only two people on the tour we took.  That is actually a good thing, we were able to progress at our pace and not stop and wait for slow-pokes like you have to do on a tour with 20+ people!

We were impressed with this cavern; the formations were wonderful here as well!

Here are pictures we took:

We visited two caverns located in western Virginia.  The larger was Luray Cavern.  The part we toured is approx 160 feet below the surface and was a bit warmer than other caverns we’ve been in.  The tour guide explained that it’s a bit warmer because of the higher level of humidity.

This was a beautiful cavern!  The colors are more pronounced in this cavern than in other caverns we’ve visited…even Carlsbad!  And, the beautiful formations are everywhere!  In other caverns you would walk down blasted out pathways to get to the next “room” where the formations were; at Luray they were non-stop!

There is a stalacpipe organ in Luray which was very different.  In the 1950s someone was commissioned to install a pipe organ and wire it to various stalactites around one of the larger rooms.  The resulting sound from the organ was like small bells with different tones, quieter than I imagined it would be.  They couldn’t make the sounds louder without damaging the stalactites.  The room where the pipe organ was installed has hosted over 500 weddings over the years!  Can you imagine getting dressed to go to a wedding and having to walk down into a cavern in order to participate?

Here are pictures we took of the Luray caverns: