Cavern's Staggering Formations Take Center Stage In The "Big Room"
Cave Tour Of Tuckaleechee Caverns In Townsend Is Praised Over And Over As Excellent Destination On TripAdvisor
In the Tuckaleechee Valley of Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains decades ago, two young boys became spelunkers and discovered what would turn into a lifelong project for them. “My grandfather and his buddy Harry, they were playing around and they found the cave when they were six years old. They started exploring all through the cave using homemade lanterns. I guess the Lord was with them, because they crawled all around the cave”, said Benjamin Vananda grandson of Bill Vananda co-founder of Tuckaleechee Caverns.
Bill and his friend Harry spent a good bit of their childhood exploring and playing in the cave. However, it would be several years and many adventures before they would open the cave to the public. “After they graduated Maryville College, they got drafted into the war and had to go fight on the beaches of Normandy. They lived through that and when they got back home to Townsend, there weren’t any jobs, so they moved to Alaska and worked on the Alaskan pipeline. They made enough money to buy the land on the cave and the mineral rights for the cave itself and they opened it in 1953 - it has been running since”, explained Benjamin. In 1982 Harry sold his share to my grandfather, so now it’s just the Vananda family.
Since its opening, the cave has seen thousands of visitors. The effort to develop the cave for visitors included many hours of back breaking labor. “The cave is a mile and a quarter tour, but the cave is a lot bigger than that. We had to carry all of the concrete on our backs to develop the trails, so that’s as long as the tour is going to stay for right now”, Benjamin chuckled.
The caverns are formed out of limestone that was deposited when much of the area was covered by shallow seas. Over the years, the limestone eroded creating the caverns. “Originally, it was a solid piece of limestone and either extreme temperature changes or a major earthquake caused a crack to run through it. Limestone is very soluble with acidic water, which all rain is. So, you have this rainwater running down through it and once it hits the crack, it’s going to take the path of least resistance, so it started to erode away and over 20-30 million years that’s a lot of erosion”, explained Benjamin.
The caverns have an abundance of formations for visitors viewing pleasure. “We’ve got stalactites, stalagmites, helictites, cave veins, flow stone, drip stone, and the largest palette formation ever found. A palette formation is a formation that is formed by a crack in the wall, where there is water spraying out of the crack. How ever far the momentum would carry the water away from the wall it would create a mineral shelf of calcium carbonate; once it reaches the extent of how far the pressure will spray, it rolls over the plate to form a ribbon to the bottom”, Benjamin said.
Visitors to the cave are treated to an approximately one-hour tour of the formations. Guided tours begin every 15 minutes throughout the day. The "big room" inside the cave, you can just about build a football stadium in it. At the bottom of the big room, there's a 150 foot drop down to the creek bed. Then a 210 foot underground waterfall on the other side. Visitors are not allowed to tour the caves alone as there are many areas that could prove dangerous. “You can be crawling through a tunnel and the only way to turn around is to get to the end of it, and sometimes at the end of these tunnels, you could be looking down 300 feet”, stated Benjamin.
Even after 64 years of operation, the cave is still surprising the Vanandas. Last year, one of their guides, while leading a tour, discovered a mastodon tooth in the cave. “She was looking for quartz in this part of the cave that we call the beach area. In this area, we let people fill their bottles and drink the water and the guide was kind of bored letting folks fill their containers. She was looking around for quartz and saw what looked like a white rock. She went to uncover it and found this giant mastodon tooth”, exclaimed Benjamin. Over the years, Benjamin stated they have found a few plant fossils, but never anything to this extent. They are unsure where the tooth came from, but the University of Tennessee was consulted and verified its authenticity. Since the discovery, guides and visitors have been on the lookout for further treasures.
Regardless whether visitors choose to look for mastodon teeth or admire the formations and waterfalls, Tuckaleechee Caverns offers an unforgettable experience that the Vananda family plans to continue into the future. Benjamin is the third generation of Vanandas to work in the cave and he is currently training his nephews to continue operations. “I love the cave. I’ve always been an avid climber and I’ve always loved it. It’s the most active cave you can visit on this side of the country. Some of the caves out west are bigger, but our cave is much older because it’s made out of limestone. There’s no telling what is preserved down there”, Benjamin stated.
Jared Langenegger
A graduate of New Mexico State University with B.S. in wildlife and fisheries science, Jared spent 15 years working in fisheries and parks management. He enjoys camping, fishing, hunting, painting, and wood working.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Townsend/Great Smokies KOA, where all campsites have picnic tables and campfire rings. Free cable TV, 30 or 50 amp service, and paved patios. The water/electric and tent camping site areas range from semi-sunny to heavily wooded and secluded.