America 2015: Day Twenty-One (19 August 2015)

I was born across the river
In the mountains where I call home.
Lord, times were good there.
Don't know why I ever roamed.

Oh, Tennessee River and a mountain man,
We get together anytime we can.
Oh, Tennessee River and a mountain man,
We play together in Mother Nature's band.

                                                                                                             - Alabama

 

Wednesday 19 August

What a fantastic day! There’s nothing like a bit of local knowledge to steer you in the right direction. I mean, without it, I would never have even thought about Chattanooga, Tennessee as being a place to stop and visit, let alone actually come in. I’m glad I did, because the city – apparently where the concept of a tow-truck was invented – has some really cool stuff that most tour guides and travel agents wouldn’t know about probably if their lives depended on it.

Despite dire predictions weather-wise, we managed to get in a full day’s sightseeing, and I’m exhausted as a result. First stop this morning was Lookout Mountain. You can drive up there, but the best way to scale the heights is by taking the famous and venerable Lookout Mountain Incline Railway, which was opened a long time ago, way back in November of 1895, and has been a popular tourist attraction in the area ever since.

 

On the Register of Historic Places, the railway is the steepest of it’s kind in the world, rising a mile from suburban Chattanooga to the observation deck at the summit, a mile, basically straight up. There’s a passing loop halfway up or down, but is a single-track for the majority.

The view from the top of Lookout Mountain is reputed as being spectacular. In fact, on a good day, you can see parts of six states, and more than a hundred miles away. The low-lying clouds put pay to any thought that we’d see that distance toward the Great Smoky Mountains, but, nonetheless, the view was amazing. You get a good idea of how Chattanooga sits in a shallow valley, ringed by mountains on all sides.

Lookout Mountain Panorama

 

Our second stop was at nearby Ruby Falls. This place is incredible! The underground waterfall, which drops 145ft to the collecting pool, which itself is 1120 feet below the surface of Lookout Mountain, was discovered by a caving enthusiast named Leo Lambert, who spent a total of eighteen hours underground finding the cavern and waterfall after feeling a whoosh of cool air coming from parts unknown during his time exploring the Lookout Mountain Caverns. The initial passageway discovered was just eighteen inches high and four feet wide. Leo named it for his wife, Ruby.

If you don’t like confined spaces, Ruby Falls probably isn’t your thing. You go down in a rather crammed elevator, are met by a guide, then walk a half-mile along paths – similar to the pathways they have at Jenolan Caves back home – stopping at various formations, before arriving at the main attraction.

Not a lot of head room on the path to Ruby Falls

 

Presented with multi-coloured lights and stirring orchestral music, the falls are pretty incredible, and you can see why they’re such a popular destination – so popular, in fact, that the original Lookout Mountain Cave were closed in 1935 because people simply weren’t keen to go there.  The entire area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The sun came out whilst we were down looking at Ruby Falls, and it turned into a beautiful afternoon! After lunch, our last stop for the day was the Ruby Falls Zip Line Adventure, which was all sorts of fun. More than just a zip-lining course, it’s an entire experience many feet off the ground, negotiating all sorts of obstacles – ladders, tunnels, rope bridges, tunnels and zip lines – obviously with the protection of a harness and all the other equipment you associate with any sort of climbing.

Ruby Falls

 

You’re hooked up the entire time, so even if you fall off one of the elements on the course, it’s gonna be painful in the short-term, but not anything serious. Our guide, a military veteran who was awesome, said they get 2-3 people falling off a month. I can only imagine how far up the harness would ride if you took a misstep and ended up in thin air.

There’s also a climbing tower, which looked a lot higher from the top than it did from the bottom. The longest zip-line is forty feet, above the treetops, and it’s fantastic. Really had a great time on the course, which we went through twice. In the hot sun, it’s pretty tiring, but a good work-out, walking up hills to get to each obstacle. The cold water they had at the beginning of the course was a life saver!

Had so much fun today. It’s been great touring through Tennessee for the last few days. We’re off to Knoxville tomorrow for a weekend of short-track NASCAR racing.