Going Down! Exploring Natural Tunnel State Park
Going Down! Exploring Natural Tunnel State Park
By: a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
This isn’t a cave. It’s a tunnel, and not one that humans made!
We stumbled across this place while driving along Highway 23, the sort of unplanned stop that Fish and I practically insists upon. What we found was Natural Tunnel, a massive limestone passage carved by water over hundreds of thousands of years, large enough to drive a full-sized railroad train through.
Which, as it turns out, someone eventually did.
Natural Tunnel was formed when Stock Creek slowly eroded the limestone ridge, creating a passage nearly 850 feet long and about 100 feet high. Long before railroads arrived, Native American tribes used the tunnel as a natural corridor through the mountains. Much later, in the late 1800s, the South Atlantic & Ohio Railroad laid tracks directly through it, recognizing the obvious advantage of a ready-made mountain passage.
Those tracks are still active today.
Natural Tunnel State Park grew up around this geological oddity, preserving both the tunnel and the surrounding forested valley. The park itself is lovely, quiet, well-kept, and surprisingly expansive. One of its more memorable features is the chairlift that carries visitors down into the gorge. It’s steep. A little wild. And honestly, half the fun.
You can hike down instead, but the trail is no joke. The chairlift lets you save your knees for wandering near the creek and standing in awe beneath the tunnel’s shadow, watching trains occasionally roll through as casually as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Which, somehow, it isn’t.
We were so glad we happened upon this place. It felt like discovering a secret that’s been hiding in plain sight for a very long time, geology, history, and modern life all sharing the same narrow passage.
The best finds are often the ones you weren’t looking for.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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