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Luray Caverns

Photo: Stan Mouser / CC BY 2.0 · source

🕳️ Caves

Luray Caverns

Luray, VA · Shenandoah Valley

About

Discovered in 1878 and lit ever since, Luray Caverns runs cathedral-deep under the Shenandoah Valley, where 50-foot columns and the rippling stone drapery of Saracen's Tent rise out of a steady 54-degree dark. The showpiece is Dream Lake, a pool only twenty inches deep that sits so still it mirrors the stalactites overhead into a perfect double, so you genuinely cannot tell water from stone. Then there is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the world's largest musical instrument, which taps tuned formations across three and a half acres of chamber to fill the cave with sound.

Highlights

Dream Lake, a mirror pool that doubles the stalactites overheadThe Great Stalacpipe Organ, world's largest musical instrumentSaracen's Tent, one of the finest stone draperies anywhere60-foot fluted columns in Giant's HallPaved 1.25-mile loop at a constant 54 degrees

Getting there

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Part of these collections

Curated guides that feature Luray Caverns.

America's Best Caves22 places

America's Best Caves

Step out of the daylight into another world: the longest cave on the planet in Kentucky, a desert chamber big enough to swallow a stadium in New Mexico, an underground waterfall in Tennessee, and a living crystal cavern in Arizona. Some you walk, some you ride a boat through, and one you crawl with a headlamp. America's great caves and caverns, from the national parks to the lantern-lit show caves.