Then There Was That Tunnel

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The last major stop I made yesterday was at a state park in southern Virginia called Natural Tunnel State Park. Ooh, was that a nice detour from my detoured detour! Natural Tunnel is exactly what the name implies: a big tunnel that was made by water running through the side of a mountain and eroding the rock (as opposed to dynamite blasting the rock out). Thanks to Covid-19 the chairlift wasn’t open (it’s only open on weekends, which puzzles me: isn’t it less crowded to squeeze 500 people through in seven days versus two?). However, there were still ways to see the tunnel. An overlook from a trail called “lover’s leap” was the option I took because it was pretty darn short and it was pretty darn hot. (Another option was a very steep 1/3-mile [one way] trail that went down to the bottom of the gorge....couldn’t have handled the trip back up, so I passed on that.) Apparently there’s a railroad trip to or through the tunnel, too, because train tracks are visible in the tunnel entrance. That, too, was closed. Regardless, the view was terrific. It appears to be a rather deep gorge (I have a problem with heights and sheer drop offs, so I didn’t get close enough, even with a chain-link fence barrier, to guesstimate the depth), and the tunnel appears to be very large, especially considering it’s naturally made instead of a man-made hole in the side of the mountain. This is one place I want to return to when things improve so I can explore the tunnel more extensively. Even with the limited access, I was delighted with the views.