Mammoth Cave: Day 1

Mammoth Cave National Park was the 10th national park we visited. We knew absolutely nothing going into this park, so we started our trip at the visitor center. We weren't surprised to learn that we needed to pay for a tour in order to go into the cave itself. The most highly recommended tour was the historic tour. It started shortly after we got there, so we signed ourselves up and got going.

The historic tour enters the cave through the "historic entrance", a large, natural opening into the cave that has been used for cave tours for over 200 years. There were Native American artifacts found inside this entrance which dated back to 2,000 - 4,000 years ago. Not much is known about Native Americans in the cave except that they explored several miles of it and scraped gypsum off the walls.

Along the passage leading from the entrance to the first big open room, we noticed several weather stations that the national parks service uses to monitor conditions and airflow within the caves.

Along the path were old wooden water pipes, which followed us all the way to the "rotunda", the first large open room. There, an early 1800s saltpeter extraction process was preserved. Saltpeter, or potassium nitrate, was extracted by piling up bat guano (poop) into large boxes and running water over them. This pulled the potassium nitrate out of the guana and the water was sent back to the surface to be distilled for gunpowder, which was in high demand because of the war of 1812.

 

From there the tour went down and down through some tight spaces, passing over the "bottomless pit" and through "fat man's misery" and "tall man's agony". We fit without squeezing too much and didn't have to crawl, but the spaces were a bit too tight for Kathleen's liking.

The bottomless pit. Imagine it with no lighting

Kathleen squeezing through fat man's misery.

Kathleen fitting through some tight spaces

The last big cave feature of the tour was mammoth dome, a 192 foot tall, large opening underneath a sinkhole where water has been seeping in for millions of years. Here we saw a lot of dripstone on the walls and went up 60 stairs 

 

 

On our way back to the rotunda, we were fortunate enough to spot a bat on the ceiling! At the end of our tour, we had to walk over soapy, water-soaked mats to help prevent the spread of white-nose syndrome, a fungal infection responsible for the deaths of millions of bats in Kentucky alone.

So, what did we learn about the caves on our tour and during our stop at the visitor center thereafter? We learned that there are over 420 miles of connected cave and there are more areas still to be explored. The passageways and rooms were formed by water slowly eroding away the limestone as it seeped in, finding its way down and to the green river. Many of the features of mammoth caves are dry because of shale and sandstone found at the surface.

Cave tours into mammoth cave started over 200 years ago. Guides, usually slaves, would take people into the cave with nothing more than a few oil lanterns to light their way. Use of the caves, though, dates back to roughly 4,000 years ago with Native Americans. There are many names on the walls of mammoth caves that were burnt onto the rock using smoke. Only the ones predating the establishment of the park are legally there.

There are species that live nowhere else but in Kentucky caves, including the Kentucky cave shrimp and  colorless eyeless fish. The majority of the nutrient enter the cave through species that go in and out, including bats, cave crickets and small mammals. 

After several hours of touring the cave and exploring the visitor center, we decided to take Aiden on a hike around the park, above ground. On the hike we got to see the green river, which the water in the cave flows into, the sink hole that flows water into mammoth dome, and plenty of deer which were very unafraid of people.