Ingles Open Road: Linville Caverns
The following is paid content produced by Ingles Markets.
I’m Chris Bainbridge, and I love the Carolinas. This is an amazing place to find adventure in all shapes and sizes – even in our changing world. Ingles sent me on a mission to bring you the very best of what our beautiful home has to offer – food, fun, nature, music, and more… all affordable, and all out of the ordinary. This is The Ingles Open Road.
Our travels are taking us someplace ancient and deep (literally) into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Welcome to Linville Caverns.
Located in Marion, North Carolina, beneath Humpback Mountain, lies this intricate and active limestone cavern. All of this was carved by water that still flows through the caverns today, and it’s this water that led to the caverns’ discovery.
It was in 1822 that fishermen noticed trout mysteriously swimming into and out of the mountain. Well, curiosity took hold and led to them scrambling through a hole and stumbling upon this system of caverns – millions of years in the making.
Today, your half hour tour takes you through two of the three levels of Linville Caverns – with the lowest level completely submerged in water. As you traverse the beautifully lit pathways, you might experience a tiny drip of water finding its way onto your person. If you do, you just got the “kiss of the cave,” which is considered to be good luck. This dripping mineral-rich water is what forms the stalactites and stalagmites.
The formations here are gorgeous. But don’t touch! It takes mother nature about 125 years to form one cubic inch of this beautiful cavern.
Something that is really remarkable, in this land devoid of light, is the wide-ranging colors to see here. There is orange from iron oxide, light blue from cobalt, darker blue from zinc, and trace amounts of green from copper deposits, moss, and algae.
When you finish your tour, a beautiful park awaits right next to the river. So, pack that Ingles picnic and soak in the “above ground” beauty of Linville Caverns.
Your weekend is waiting on the Ingles Open Road!
