Hitting the wide-open road without any expectations, we’ve uncovered hidden gems. In Eastern Tennessee, we found the largest underground lake, the tallest underground waterfall, and a cavern off the beaten path with a subterranean waterfall that could take the claim of the tallest.

We headed to Eastern Tennessee to visit the Cumberland Gap and the west side of the Great Smoky Mountains. Both are National Parks and as such are on our list of places to visit. As we drove through this area, we searched for other interesting sites to visit. The sites we discovered are privately managed and not part of the US National Park System, and therefore not on a list easily found to be checked off.

Tuckaleechee Caverns

Hidden under the Smoky Mountains is a place that claims to be the “Greatest Site Under the Smokies.”

Arriving at Tuckaleechee Caverns, we found a large sign, a small building with a ticket counter, and a barren gift shop. It was also devoid of people other than those who worked there. Immediately, I was skeptical, but we’re already here so of course we are going to check it out.

Our tour guide was a college-aged woman, and I thought it was just going to be her and us, but at the last minute, a few of her friends joined us. Now we were a small group of 6. We descended into a damp and wet room just before entering the cavern where she gave us a briefing. This is a very active, still-forming cavern, so it was critical that we touch nothing as the bacteria on our hands would stop that growth.

As we descended into the cave, there were a few things I noticed. It was indeed active, I could hear water dripping everywhere. While the place was well-lit, they had not hidden all the wires and cables, so it was purely functional and not decorative. This underground place is huge!

From the main cavern in which we descended, we could head in a couple of directions. Our guide first took us through a series of caverns to a place called the “Big Room”. Not a creative name but effective, as the room could fit an entire football field and almost an entire stadium. Here we turned off all the lights and experienced complete darkness.

On the other end is a two-tiered subterranean waterfall named “Silver Falls” with a vertical drop of 210 feet making it the tallest subterranean waterfall in the Eastern US.

Sometimes “you can’t judge a book by its cover”. In this case, you can’t judge how spectacular a cavern is by looking at it above ground.

The Lost Sea Adventure

The Lost Sea Adventure holds the Guinness World Record as America’s largest underground lake. While the caverns have been forming for millions of years, the cavern’s human history dates back to the Native Americans. And then as the settlers came, the cavern was used for storage as it maintains a year-round temperature of 58 degrees Fahrenheit.

This standard tour includes a guided walk through the large rooms in the caverns to glass bottom boats for a tour of the lake.

There would not be much to see in the lake if it weren’t for the rainbow trout that were placed into the lake to determine if the water in the lake flowed out of the cavern. The experiment confirmed that the underground lake is likely self-contained and so now the fish are there as an attraction.

The visible part of the lake is 220 by 800 feet, but they do not yet know the extent of the size. New rooms filled with water have been uncovered and more than 13 acres have been sonar mapped, but no end to the lake has been found.

This underground phenomenon is a Registered National Landmark and a must-visit attraction in the area.

Ruby Falls

Ruby Falls is a heavily visited tourist destination in Chattanooga, and if you look up the top things to do, it will be on the list. As such, it was also the busiest, most structured, and resembled a theme park more than a nature walk.

There are a few options for the tours. We did the Cave Walk Tour, which is the standard tour. All tours are guided, and there are timed starts for each tour. The groups are sizable and the tours start regularly, so you are underground with a lot of people. And occasionally, groups will need to walk past each other going opposite directions.

We descended and surfaced from the cave via an elevator with a glass door so we could see the granite cave in the elevator shaft as the elevator moved. It is not a glass elevator that one may encounter in a hotel lobby where the entire lobby is visible or in this case, the entire cavern.

After the descent, there is a guide briefing and then we started our underground journey to the waterfall. The number of people visiting daily has virtually stopped the continued natural development of this cave system. Unfortunately, the guides really can’t prevent groups this large from touching every surface, even when they are told not to.

There is signage for all the stalactite and stalagmite formations (which is actually quite helpful) and audio played over a speaker system.

The highlight is Ruby Falls, which claims to be the “tallest and deepest underground cave waterfall open to the public in the United States,” which makes me wonder where is the actual tallest and deepest. I Google searched it, and the only thing I found is that the highest known subterranean waterfall is in Vrtiglavica Caves in Slovenia at 1,300 feet.

Ruby Falls is 144 feet. Silver Falls, the 2-tier waterfall in Tuckaleechee Caverns has a vertical drop of 210 feet. The numbers speak for themselves, but Ruby Falls gets all the fame. The waterfall is impressive, but the changing colorful lighting – blue, purple, pink, red, green, orange – made it a bit kitschy.

This is a busy tourist attraction so buy tickets online a few days in advance. In fact, it explicitly says on the website, “Purchase Tickets Online in Advance. Tickets Sold Online Only. Cave adventures sell out quickly! Buy tickets several days in advance for best availability.”

Finding the Hidden Gems

The US has so much to uncover and explore, and sometimes to see them you just have to get on the road and go. Luckily, we have digital maps and apps these days to find interesting spots nearby. And we may not be the first explorers in these caves, but it’s still awe-inspiring to see these discoveries.