Mammoth Cave

I decided that on my way back from spending Thanksgiving in Nashville, I would finally make the journey and stop by Mammoth Cave, since i was passing right by the park anyway.  So I went to the Visitor Center and got two tickets: One for the Historical Entrance Tour at 11:00, and one for the New Entrance Tour at 2:00.  For the Historical Entrance Tour it was just a short walk down a trail.

 Because there has been rain recently, there was a waterfall coming down overtop the "Natural" Entrance.  Normally the limestone aborbs the water, but because of all the rain some water still flowed on the surface.  However, just a few feet inside the cave entrance the water did disappear.  We passed through a gate and soon we were in the Rotunda.  It is a large circle room and two huge stream passages go off from both sides.

Our guide stopped us in here for a little bit.  In the Rotunda were some old salt-peter vats and a few old log pipes.  He spent some time explaining to us the process of mining the salt-peter and how Mammoth Cave played a significant role during the War of 1812.  During this time period the salt-peter was more valuable than gold.

From that point on our guide led us down Broadway, and Gothic Avenue.  Periodically he would pause to point out some features, and tell us history of parts of the cave.  He talked a lot about the slave named Steven Bishop.  A lot of the times slaves led the rich folks on cave tours, during the 1800s and Steven Bishop is probably the most famous.  He did a lot of exploring and found some of the famous places in Mammoth Cave such as the Snowball Room and Bottomless Pit.

Our guide led us behind Giant's Coffin and we descended down a passage that took us over Sidesaddle Pitt, Bottomless Pit, and then through Fat Man's Misery.

In some places our guide showed us old graffiti that early tourists had written on the ceiling with candle smoke.  But really the last impressive stop we made Mammoth Dome.  There was a little bit of flow stone in this dome.  And it was the first wet section we saw.

Now I wish I could say I took this picture but I didn't.  I just wanted you all to get an idea what Mammoth Dome is like.  Since my camera was dead I could only use the picture setting on my video camera which doesn't have a flash.  So I didn't get good pictures.  But anyway, this is one of the few sections in mammoth that has dripping water from the surface.  This is because most of Mammoth is covered in a thick sandstone/shale caprock.  This prevents water from entering.  This is why most of the cave system are devoid of formations.  However, in Mammoth Dome there is a break and this water is allowed to enter and in a few places limestone is redeposited to form the flowstone.

After that we climbed to the top of the dome, and soon we were coming back on the other side of the Rotunda.  Our guide led us out, and we walked across the bio-mats because the government is concerned about White Nose Syndrome in bats.

When we got out I had about an hour until the New Entrance Tour.  We met at a shelter and then loaded up onto a bus.  I had the same guide that I had from the Historical Tour.  This trip was rather nice because there was only about 20 of us so our guide was able to stop for longer periods of time and talk to us more.

The "New Entrance" was created in 1924.  It was blasted out by a guy who tried to compete and steal business from the people leading the historical tours.  It allowed a very beautiful portion of Mammoth Cave to be shown.  Without that entrance being blasted you would have to travel miles and miles to get to it from the natural entrance.  Soon after we descended through the doors we walked down steep narrow stairs and wound our way through domes and tall canyons.  This was a totally different portion of cave.

It was very pretty seeing this active section of cave.  A good portion of the New Entrance Tour is in the far reaches of the system that does not have a sandstone caprock on top of it.  So a lot of water gets through and forms domes, and formations.

We got to an area with benches and our guide spent some time talking about the geology side of the cave.  A lot of it I already knew, but some of it I did find interesting.  And I did learn something about cave crickets.  I always wondered what the heck cave crickets eat in caves.  But it turns out they must come out every 14-15 days to get food.  So they can stay underground for a while.  Then we continued on and walked along some trails in breakdown.  We were actually walking close to the ceiling.  When the water drained from the passage and went lower into the cave the archways collapsed until it reached a stable point.

Then, it was time for the climax of the trip.  The Frozen Niagra section, and some small domes and formations after that.  Again, I didn't get good pictures because of no flash so I put up some good pictures I found so you have an idea of what it looks like.

The views were very spectacular.  We were able to go down some stairs and view everything from the bottom of the room, and then we climbed back up to the top and started out way out the Frozen Niagra Entrance.  Along the way we passed some very beautiful formations.  In one section they had them gated off because they were so fragile and needed to be protected.

Here is a video (for those of you getting the email it is attached) of that section.  The lighting was poor for the camera but you can get glimpses of the beauty.

The final stop was the Rainbow Dome.  There were a lot of formations and a few rimstone dams.  And also there was a tall dome in which the old tour guide had dammed up water to form a "lake" to draw in tourists and give them a boat ride.  Then we exited and loaded up on the bus and went back to the visitor center.  It was a very nice tour and I plan to return next year in the spring and summer to see more tours to different parts of the cave.