{"id":627,"date":"2018-10-03T11:26:45","date_gmt":"2018-10-03T11:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/?p=627"},"modified":"2018-10-03T11:31:17","modified_gmt":"2018-10-03T11:31:17","slug":"linville-caverns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/2018\/10\/03\/linville-caverns\/","title":{"rendered":"Linville Caverns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stalactites,
Stalactites, Stalagmites and other formations in Linville Caverns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Linville Caverns is the only commercial cave in North Carolina. (There are commercial caves in Tennessee and Virginia that aren\u2019t that far away.)<\/p>\n

The caverns were discovered by fishermen in 1822. Linville Caverns has been a show cave since the late 1930s.<\/p>\n

\"Linville
Linville Caverns formed in Shady Dolomite, magnesium-bearing limestone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Linville Caverns formed in a deposit of Shady Dolomite. \u00a0Shady Dolomite is a magnesium-bearing limestone. \u00a0Nearby Woodlawn Quarry excavates Shady Dolomite for sand and lime.<\/p>\n

Linville Caverns is open every day March thru November. They are only open on the weekends from December 1st<\/sup> till the end of February.<\/p>\n

Knowledgeable, friendly cave guides lead you through the cave. The tour takes about half an hour.<\/p>\n

\"Civil
Civil War deserters hid in Linville Caverns
Illustration of Civil War Deserter
Artist Alfred Rudolph Waud, 1828-1891<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The cave guide tells you about the local cave history. Civil War deserters used Linville Caverns as a hideout.<\/p>\n

\"Blind
Blind Trouts in Linville Caverns, North Carolina
Photo by Jan Kronsell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The guide tells you what creatures live in caves. He will point out blind cave fish.<\/p>\n

\"Tri
Tri Color Bat
Photo Hit527<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tricolored bats and little brown bats winter in Linville Caverns. If you tour the caves in the late fall or winter, the guide will point them out.<\/p>\n

\"Tri
Tri Color Bat
Photo Enwebb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tricolored bats and little brown bats eat bugs.<\/p>\n

\"Little
Little Brown Bats
Photo Hollingsworth John and Karen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Little
Little Brown Bats
Photo Ann Froschauer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stalactites,
Stalactites, Stalagmites and other formations in Linville Caverns<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The guide points out formations along the path and gives an easy geology lesson about the stalactites, stalagmites and other formations.<\/p>\n

The tour ends at an excellent gift shop, where anyone who doesn\u2019t wish to take the tour can wait.<\/p>\n

Linville Caverns is on US-221 between Linville and Marion, 4 miles off of the Blue Ridge Parkway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Linville Caverns is the only commercial cave in North Carolina. (There are commercial caves in Tennessee and Virginia that aren\u2019t that far away.) The caverns were discovered by fishermen in 1822. Linville Caverns has been a show cave since the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cave-animals","category-caves"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/featured-Linville_Caverns.jpg?fit=750%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89IcP-a7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/caving\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}