Communities
Linville Caverns Unveiled Near Marion Real Estate
By HarrisRealty.org

North Carolina’s Linville Caverns are a masterpiece in the making.  Mineral-laden drops of water absorbed from the surface of the mountains continue to sculpt exotic flowstone formations 2,700 feet beneath the Blue Ridge Parkway.  They are located in the peaceful Linville Valley at the base of Humphrey Mountain, just 18 miles north of Marion real estate.  (Take US-221N.)  The nearest towns with lodging include Marion and Little Switzerland to the south, Spruce Pine to the west and Blowing Rock to the north.

As North Carolina’s only natural caverns open to the public, they are part of the TripKid Souvenir Passport Stamp Program.  The friendly and knowledgeable guides, along with wheelchair-accessible pathways, make this tour is a wonderful living-geology lesson. 

The 30-minute guided tour through 52-degree tunnels will bring them to life.  You will hear colorful stories about historical uses of the caves—like the Civil War hideout.  You’ll smell the dark, wet air and even feel water drops on your nose.  You’ll see iridescent trout swimming to and fro, blinded from the continual dark habitat.  And you just may spot a harmless Eastern Pipistrelle Bat taking a nap on the ceiling during winter.  Find out how carbon dioxide dissolved limestone and dolomite to clear the way for you to enter the mountain! 

The caverns are actually on three levels and the tour emphasizes the middle level.  The lowest is the water level where streams meander at your feet.  The upper level is honeycombed with the flowstone, a slick, glass-like form of limestone, too fragile to stand on.  Only “The Gilkey Room” is open in the upper level.  Beyond the tour loop, there are shorter caverns that continue another ¼ mile under the mountain.

Speaking of that Gilkey Room:  John Q. Gilkey is the gentleman who bought the property, built walkways, enlarged the entrance, and opened the doors for tours on July 1, 1937.  After he passed on in 1939, and a subsequent flood, a private corporation assumed stewardship.  The caverns were actually discovered by settlers a hundred years before.  In 1822 fishermen noticed trout coming and going from the mountain at the edge of the stream.  Carrying pinewood torches, they entered a small opening in the rock and discovered that this stream continued into the mountain.  

Scientists say it took eons for the water moving through the depths of the mountains to carve out these passageways.  Some believe that the nearby Catawba River ate away at the valley, that water-filled caverns slowly drained from the top, leaving the present streams and a 250-foot-deep pool inside the mountain.

Mother Nature continues as the artist, decorating this intriguing inner space with new deposits of minerals, forming elegant shapes and multiple textures, and splashing a spectrum of color.  Tour guides tell interested visitors that the sparkling stalactites hang tight from the ceilings and stalagmites might someday get that tall.  Iron oxide creates a pinkish orange color; black from manganese; blues from zinc and cobalt, white from calcium carbonate, green from algae and moss. 

Minerals responsible for creating this geological kaleidoscope also helped the state earn the title, “The Gem State.”  It was Thomas Edison’s team who traveled here looking for platinum to make lamps.  Instead, they returned home marveling at the glittering gem outcrops and chambers with amazing symmetry deep in the mountain.

Ingenuity is the seer that has named many a formation after something similar in the outside world.  For example, “The Cathedral” resembles a medieval wedding scene, they say.  There’s the “Ballroom” and the “Guess What?”  Take a peek now at www.linvillecaverns.com.  And learn more by stopping by the gift shop for a book to take home.