Mammoth Cave

Next on our Kentucky agenda, after the Land Between the Lakes, was Mammoth Cave National Park, a drive of about 150 miles from Prizer Point on Lake Barclay; we arrived in early afternoon.  En route we happened upon a Cracker Barrel at lunch time -- Wednesday being a particularly good time for that stop: Susie's favorite - chicken pot pie.  That evening, continuing our Mexi-tucky culinary theme, we had dinner at a Mexican grill near the RV park, and the meal turned out to be quite tasty.  Owner from Acapulco region, so several seafood items on the menu -- I had shrimp in a very good "ranchero" sauce.  However, I'm going to need me some catfish pretty soon.

Thursday I headed into the Park to take a tour (Susie doesn't do caves).  Happened upon this little cemetery in the Park with an interesting name: Abandon hope all ye who enter here?

There are several tours you can take: I opted for the Grand Avenue tour.  This is a 4-mile, 4.5 hr. "Long Walk Through a Whole Lot of Rock," as our guide dubbed it.  Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world with nearly 400 miles of discovered passageways. (Second place is Jewel Cave in SD with 150 miles.)  A passageway is defined as an opening large enough for a human (of reasonable size) to squeeze, crawl, or slither through it.  There are five levels, vertically, of these passageways.  There is another tour available caled the Wild Cave tour.  It covers five miles in 6.5 hrs. and includes a lot of these tight squeezes.  You find your way using helmet lamps, not lighted passageways.

We started with the Cleaveland Avenue passageway, a mile or more of a broad canyon, sort of like a subway tunnel filled with a jumble of rocks.  Lunch break was in an underground dining area called the Snowball Room because of these ceiling formations. 

After lunch we went through Boone Avenue. The passageway here was very narrow, often only shoulder wide, but vertically very high. Kind of like walking through the sort of slot canyons you see in Utah, except there is no sky overhead.


The path onward had a lot of ups and downs as the path passed over areas of fallen rock.  We ended up in an area that included the "Frozen Niagra" formation.  A lot of Mammoth Cave is covered by a impervious sandstone layer, so water has not seeped through it and formed the stalagtites and stalagmites you tend to associate with caves.  The Frozen Niagra area, though, has these formations.  Here are a couple of my pictures from here:

And here's an internet picture of Frozen Niagra:

 
The story of how the National Park came into being is interesting, as Ranger Rick told us.  In the 1930s different individuals owned separate parts of Mammoth Cave.  Also, there are other caves in the region.  Fierce competition broke out in what became known as the Kentucky Cave War.  Confusing signs were posted: This way to official entrance to Mammoth Cave. This way to shortest route to MC.  (The isgns are still there - confused us on our first drive to the Park.  Now the signs are trying to get you to drive past various roadside attractions along the way.)  Tourists would be intercepted by guys wearing ranger-like uniforms who would direct them to their employer's cave.  Or, tell them that there was an outbreak of some disease like bat fever, so the cave you want to visit is quarantined.  There was also vandalism against the competition's caves.  The good people of KY decided to put a stop to this and to work to establish a National Park that would include all of Mammoth Cave.  The US government couldn't buy up the land, so KY raised money by donations, during the Depression, to buy the land where they could, including the use of eminent domain to force some sales (Wikipedia says there is still lingering bad feelings about that) and put it all together.  The National Park was dedicated in 1941.  There is no fee to drive into the park.  The tours are fee events. 

I considered going back for a shorter tour on Friday, but my feet were still feeling the four-mile after-effects, so I drove the countryside looking for barn pictures.  KY has a lot of barns like this, plain rectangles, unpainted, or black.

Here's a more traditional style:

I liked the flared-out lines of this one:

Some farmland to admire:

In fact, there's a lot of farmland to admire.  We've really been enjoying the pastures, fences, big farmhouses, etc.  Next we're heading for Frankfort and the nearby Lexington horse country.

Until then,

Cheers,

Susie and Rob