If you grew up in Virginia, you probably made the requisite
trip with family or schoolmates to Luray Caverns or one
of its show cave sisters, Shenandoah, Endless or Skyline.
There are, in fact, eight commercial caves in our state.
In addition to those named, there’s Caverns of Natural
Bridge Village; Crystal Caverns at Hupp’s Hill;
Dixie Caverns and Grand Caverns.
Beyond these spectacular tourist attractions with their
underground lakes, light shows and musical stalagmites
and stalactites, more than 4,200 known caves exist in
the Old Dominion. Most are “wild” and 95 percent
are on private land, according to the Virginia Speleological
Survey, a non-profit group of cave explorers. The longest
cave surveyed in the Old Dominion is 22 miles and the
deepest is almost a quarter of a mile below the surface.
(VA Speleological
Society.)
What accounts for Virginia’s wealth of dark recesses?
It’s a matter of geology. As you may recall from
grade-school science, limestone forms as the compressed
remains of sea animals on the floors of ancient seas.
Our region was once such a sea. Then, according to some
theories, the continents of North America and Europe bumped
into each other creating the Appalachian Mountains. The
collision also lifted blocks of limestone close to the
surface, creating cracks and crevices. Over millennia,
surface water containing carbonic acid seeped into the
crevices and hollowed out caverns. The result is karst
– a landscape dotted with sinkholes, springs and
streams that sink into caverns below the surface. In Virginia
most caves are found in karst in 27 counties in the western
part of the state.
Caves have fascinated Virginia’s inhabitants since
the early days of the Commonwealth. “In the lime-stone
country, there are many caverns of very considerable extent,”
wrote Thomas Jefferson in 1781. He was the first to map
a large cavern known as Madison’s Cave, near the
present town of Grottoes in the Shenandoah Valley. A nearby
show cave, Grand Caverns, was discovered in 1804 by a
trapper named Bernard Weyer who tracked an animal down
a hole which led to a large cavern. It opened as Weyer’s
Cave in 1806 and remained an attraction throughout the
19th century. Weyer’s Cave became Grand Caverns
in the 1920s, but has been a tourist attraction longer
than any other commercial cave in the country.
Caves have even inspired literary efforts. "Arsareth:
A Tale of the Luray Caverns," a romance, was
published in 1893. It fantasized that the lost tribes
of Israel once lived in Virginia caverns. Another work
inspired by the same cave, "Tongo, the Hero of
the Luray Caverns," appeared in 1922 as a fictionalized
history of Native Americans in the region.
Virginia’s caves are so bountiful they even have
their own administrative body – the Virginia Cave
Board. The 12-member board is tasked with protecting our
underground labyrinths. It was established in 1979 as
part of Virginia’s Cave Protection Act. (VA
Cave Board.) The Virginia Code enumerates the board's
powers to “maintain a current list of all significant
caves in Virginia and report any real and present danger
to such caves;” “facilitate data gathering
and research efforts on caves;” and “advise
civil defense authorities on the present and future use
of Virginia caves in civil defense.” In Virginia,
it is illegal to remove anything from a cave, or to leave
anything behind (including human waste). The law applies
to both private and public caves. (VA
Cave Protection Act.)
It was human encroachment that finally led to cave protection
efforts. Unique but fragile ecosystems were endangered,
as well as archeological remains. Virginia’s caves
support eight different species of bats, including the
endangered big-eared bat, now the official state bat.
Crickets, daddy long-legs and odd eyeless and pigmentless
invertebrates (often insects) live on the walls. Such
invertebrates differ from their above-ground relatives,
since color and vision are unnecessary in a cave. (VA
Division of Mineral Resources.)
Researchers also have identified 50 prehistoric burial
caves that date from the Late Woodland period (A.D. 900-1600)
in southwestern Virginia. In a study reported in the Fall
2001 issue of the "Midcontinental Journal of
Archeology," the authors visited 24 burial sites,
all of which had been vandalized. (“Southwest Virginia’s
Burial Caves: Skeletal Biology, Mortuary Behavior, and
Legal Issues,” v.26 i2 p219). The researchers were
alarmed enough they refused, in the article, to reveal
the exact location of some of the sites where remains
were found.
Among those also interested in cave conservation are cavers,
adventurers who are neither afraid of the dark nor claustrophobic.
The National Speleological Society, an organization of
cavers, sponsors 18 clubs, known as grottoes, in Virginia,
from the Fairfax Underground Network in Falls Church to
the New River Valley Grotto in Radford and the Tidewater
Grotto in Virginia Beach. Caving is not for the faint
of heart. It often involves crawling through mud or water
on hands, knees or belly. Cave temperatures, which average
around 54 degrees, can induce hyperthermia – a lowering
of body temperature that can lead to death. Many caves
have pits or vertical drops that require climbing expertise
and special equipment. Experienced cavers always carry
two back-up lights in the pure darkness of caves, as well
as wear a lighted helmet.
J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings series,
understood this attraction to dark, risky underground
worlds. Certainly, his Gollum was a cave dweller. The
Virginia Speleological Society even co-opted a Tolkien
quote for its Web site: “That, of course, is the
dangerous part about caves: you don't know how far they
go back, sometimes, or where a passage behind may lead
to, or what is waiting for you inside.”
With 4,200 caves to explore, some in Virginia seem attracted
to such unknowns.
August 8, 2005
Nice & Curious
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Last Modified:
Friday, June 27, 2008
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