The drive out here was beautiful, and I managed not to get lost. The directions I wrote out for myself were accurate, and all the roads were where they were supposed to be! I stopped for supper a little more than halfway there, to give myself a break from driving - since I could tell it was going to get dark before I got there anyway.
This morning I got up and made it out to Mammoth in plenty of time - it was only a few miles away. The tour was to start at 11:30 so I had plenty of time to look around in the visitor center.
It's a very nice visitor center, with a lot of interpretive displays about various aspects of caves in general and Mammoth Cave in particular. And there were a lot of families in there, so I was enjoying watching the kids looking at the exhibits!
I like this explanation of how there are several distinct levels in the cave. The picture below is of a model showing them - it is not quite in focus, but you can get the idea.
I had signed up to take one tour today, and one tomorrow. Today's was the "Historic Tour", which goes in through a large natural entrance. It's two miles in two hours, with 440 stairs over the course of the tour. It's a regular underground hike! You can see there are a lot of people... this tour was fully booked, which means there were 180 people, plus two rangers - one leading, one bringing up the rear to catch any stragglers. I was early enough that I had a spot somewhat near the front. Because there were so many of us, the guide couldn't talk much as we were walking, because the back half of the line wouldn't hear it. We had to stop in places large enough to gather. Fortunately, as you may have heard, it is a Very Large Cave.
Down into the depths we go...
It was really amazing how huge the passages in the cave were - great corridors, and that was before we came out into the "Rotunda" - a very large chamber which connects several passages. We stopped here - one of just a few times that we all stopped for a talk. As I was listening to the history of the cave, I was fiddling with my camera to figure out what settings would work best in such dim light. Flash photography is prohibited in the cave (except for one limited tour, which was the one I didn't get into for this evening.) So some of these are blurry, but I'm including them as an attempt to give some sense of the scale of this place.
This is mining equipment from when this used to be a saltpeter mine. Saltpeter - potassium nitrate - is a main ingredient in gunpowder. There was a booming business that dropped down to nothing the moment that the War of 1812 ended and demand was gone. The owners just left everything where it was, and decided to start giving tours instead.
That's all part of the original mining operation. We saw more things here and there when we started walking again, including plumbing made from poplar tree trunks. This is a fairly dry cave, so it was all well preserved.
Looking down a dark passageway... actually, by this time my eyes were much better adjusted and it looked a little more like this:
Maybe not quite that bright.
This is still the Rotunda, looking away from the pit - trying to show the sheer size of that room.
This could be an Impressionist painting of a cave tour.
Here's another look down a passage - see how wide and flat the ceiling is?
We came through an area I had been a little worried about, called "Fat Man's Misery" - but it wasn't as bad as I'd feared. The path was quite narrow - but only up to about two and a half feet! It was more a matter of balance than anything. Then there was "Tall Man's Misery", where it stayed narrow, there was a step up, but the ceiling remained in the same place - I did have to duck there.
We came out of that section into another chamber, which had rows of benches for us to sit on as we waited for the rest of the group to come in. (Remember, this was nearly 200 people!) Then we got another bit of talk about the cave's history.
That was the view from my bench - the path we'd be taking to get the rest of the way out.
The last section had a lot of stairs, including a tower with 155 steps all at once, in order to get back to the Rotunda without retracing our route. The first explorers did not have that option.
That's a long way down, and we hadn't even gotten to the tower yet!
At the base of the tower I finally got to see some cave formations. Most of Mammoth Cave is fairly dry, even though it was formed by water. That's because the limestone of the cave is covered by a thick layer of hard sandstone, which doesn't dissolve the way limestone does. So the only water entering the cave is through crevices in the sandstone, such as sinkholes. And the cave is so big at this point that the water rushes down to the lowest levels, where it is still gradually carving out more space.
Anyway, I did get to see this one section right before I started climbing!
When we got back outside it was blinding - but even worse was the heat. I had been underground for two hours at approximately 55 F, and my body had been compensating with extra warmth. Now, with no transition whatsoever, I was outside in 90 degree weather, and probably 90% humidity! Still wearing jeans! It was a real smack in the face. And instant blindness as my glasses fogged up.
We had to walk over mats filled with special antifungal cleanser, to try and prevent any of the fungus that causes White Nose Syndrome in bats from getting out of the cave. Squish, squish. Then walking back up to the visitor center.
Some views from above. I realized my camera lens was fogging up and had to clean it off before I could take any more pictures!
I had noticed this on the way down for the tour but didn't have time to look at it.
I went to my car and got a change of clothes (shorts, please!) then walked over to the lunch counter at the Mammoth Hotel. I sat and read and cooled off for a while - I was really wiped out! That cave tour was really fun and interesting, and a good workout, but coming back out into the Tennessee heat and humidity had drained any energy I had left.
I'm sure I would have recovered in time for the evening tour if I hadn't missed getting a reservation for it, but I had made other plans since that wasn't an option. When I was looking up directions to my motel, I noticed there was a movie theater only a few miles away! I went and saw Ant-Man for a second time. It's a fun movie - it's more of a heist movie than a superhero movie. All those scenes of him running around underground felt pretty familiar!
Then back to the motel, for a welcome shower, and bed. More cave in the morning!
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