On The Road Again…Da What Ta Heck Tour…Day 83. Sun run…temps hi 90’s. Greetings from Mammoth Cave National Park, KY. ( Mammoth Cave is the worlds longest known cave system, with more than 400 miles of explored and mapped passageways. Geologists think that there could be as many as 600 miles of as yet undiscovered passageways! ) With our senior national parks card saving us serious money, we decided to take two of the many cave tours that were still available….we did not know that many tours were booked well in advanced. We chose the self-guided Discovery and the ranger-guided Domes and Dripstones tours. Our first tour...the Discovery… trudged us down a steep hill side of steps (in 95 degree temps) toward the cave opening, and the closer we got the cooler it got until finally as we stepped into the darkness, it was fffreezing! What a treat! It was an easy half mile round trip trek on paved paths with happy families and scampering children….Now that was my kind of spelunking! The subterranean landscapes were indeed amazing and we emerged from the underground ready to tackle our next cave exploration….but first…a trip to the museum and info video at the Visitor’s Center where we read all the scientific facts about sandstone and limestone and erosion and the Paleo Indians that had first explored the cave passageways. Finally, we were called us to our bus for the Dome and Dripstones tour…oh yeah…we had to take a bus to the next cave opening where we met our two guides…Ranger John and Ranger Rick who informed us of the difficulties of this two-hour tour. huh? 300 steps down to 250 feet below the surface of the earth, sometimes squeezing thru shoulder width wide passages and bending low to fit under three to four foot ceilings while looking down 60 to 70 feet below us…..in 54 degree temps! There was no turning back once we started and it would take hours to be medically evact’d if for some reason someone went coo coo and wanted to “GET OUTTA DER!” Oh and we were repeatedly warned to NOT TOUCH THE BATS!! Hey, no problem! So off went the three bus loads of us, down down down into , as Stephen Bishop the legendary cave guide and explorer called it a grand, gloomy and peculiar place”! Mammoth Cave was comparable in beauty and awe factors to Ruby Falls and Luray Caverns but was far more physically challenging than any cave exploration tours we had ever done….darker, steeper, longer and deeper! We kept up a good pace which made taking photos in the darkened areas difficult if not impossible though we did manage to come away with a few . Our guide, Ranger John ,was knowledgeable, amusing and watchful and did not hesitate to strongly redirect two 20 somethings who thought they could wander off the path by reminding them that anything off the path was trespassing on federal property and therefore a federal offence. The highlight of the tour for me was when Ranger John gathered us all around him , sat us down , counted to three and put the lights OUT!!! TOTAL DARKNESS!!! Listen, y’all ain’t seen darkness til you’ve seen total darkness 250 feet below the surface of the earth …or….haven’t seen tota…uh….hhmm. At any rate, we could not see our hands two inches from our faces! Then it was lights on and up up up 200 more steps and back out into daylight again where we had to walk thru a shoe cleansing station of soapy woolite to help slow the spread of the fungal disease White-Nose-Syndrome that is affecting bats in Kentucky….eeewwwweee! Bats and fungus aside, it was an unforgettable two hours of rare and amazing beauty. Tomorrow…….”Little red corvette…Baby you’re much too fast”…the National Corvette Museum.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 05:47:05 +0000
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