Luray Caverns '12

Luray Caverns formations

While the Massenutten Resort offered enough on-site activities to keep one busy for a lifetime, we also wanted to see some of the local scenery beyond the boundaries of the resort, like the nearby Luray Caverns... The caverns themselves are beautiful as the pictures show. Once you and your tour group are at the bottom of the stairs you  find yourself on a winding well lighted path . The two photos I've posted are a small representation of what you see for the entire hour tour  - 1 1/4 mile walk which takes you some 200 feet into the earth. There is  something totally new and different at every bend. It's almost magical in a Harry Potter-ish kind of way.

Luray  Caverns reflecting pool

The tour guide's script is trite, but the formations themselves are magnificent and more than makes up for the script's lack of  substance . There is something deeply moving about standing next to a 15' long stalactite and reflecting on the fact that, in one person's lifetime, it grows less than one inch.  Viewing a breathtaking rock formation and realizing that it existed, in essentially the same form, for 70 million years before the Pyramids were even dream of truly gives one  a different perspective on one's place in history.