About Dismals Canyon
After darkness settles over a sandstone gorge in northwestern Alabama, thousands of tiny blue-green lights begin to shine along the canyon walls. These lights are produced by “dismalites,” the larval form of a rare fungus gnat. Their bioluminescent display gives Dismals Canyon an atmosphere more commonly associated with glowworm caves in Australia and New Zealand.
The 85-acre canyon near Phil Campbell was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1974. Water and erosion carved its narrow passageways, rock shelters, natural bridges, and steep walls from layers of sandstone. Two waterfalls,Rainbow Falls and Secret Falls,flow within the preserve, while old-growth trees and dense vegetation keep parts of the canyon cool, shaded, and humid.
Those conditions provide an ideal habitat for Orfelia fultoni. The larvae produce light through a chemical reaction and use the glow to attract tiny insects. Although visitors often call them glowworms, they are actually the immature stage of a fly. Dismals Canyon is one of only a small number of known places where this species gathers in concentrations large enough to create a visible nighttime display.
Day visitors can follow a trail through the canyon floor, passing boulders, mossy cliffs, waterfalls, and formations with names such as Temple Cave and Witches Cavern. Seeing the dismalites requires a guided night tour offered during suitable parts of the year. Weather, temperature, and the insects’ natural cycle affect the brightness of the display, so sightings can never be treated like a mechanical light show.
The canyon’s modern name is thought to derive from the dark, shadowed character of the gorge rather than the mood of the experience. Sunlight reaches the canyon floor only indirectly in many places, creating the damp environment on which its unusual ecosystem depends.
Dismals Canyon combines a scenic gorge with one of Alabama’s strangest natural phenomena. By day it is a landscape of waterfalls and stone; by night, living lights appear across the rock walls like a miniature field of stars.