Cave Tour of Ruby Falls

It’s a cave. It’s a waterfall. It’s both! Welcome to Ruby Falls.

The trifecta of Lookout Mountain in Georgia is three great places to tour: Rock City, Ruby Falls, and the Incline Railroad.

I left early in the morning to catch the Incline Railroad. Too early, it turns out. The top of Lookout Mountain where you board the railcar looked like this… Nope, nothing to see here!

So I went back down the winding, foggy mountain road – Lookout! – and had some time to kill before a scheduled tour of Ruby Falls.

There was no place to sit in the lobby, but they had a cozy cafeteria where I waited for my tour to start.

Ruby Falls is a very popular tour. As in, there’s lots of people here even in the off-season. You need advance tickets for sure. And expect to be with a crowd.

Groups of up to 50 people are scheduled every half hour. They run them through fast. I always find myself at the head of the pack going in, and the back coming out.

The tour guide hustled us along a 20 minute walk to the rear of the cave. Not much time was spent pointing out the features, although they showed a short film about the cave’s history in the middle of the darkness.

Really, if you’ve seen one limestone cave, you’ve pretty much seen them all. They’re very similar, especially in the mid-south.

What makes Ruby Falls special is the 145-foot waterfall at the far end. That’s what you come here to see. For about 5 minutes. The falls are lit up in a timed lightshow, and when the show is over, it’s over and they turn off the lights.

Then everyone shuffled back through the cave along the same path we came in.

Okay, checked that one off the list. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Chattanooga.

Ruby Falls – short, sweet, and worth doing once.