We headed down to Kentucky on the first Sunday in March, which was surprisingly warm, given the cold winter we've had this year! Mammoth Cave stays a pretty constant temperature year round (55 degrees), so we knew we'd be fine in our sweatshirts without jackets. I was pretty excited about this cave trip - I've lived so close to the cave but had never actually been in! Mel had been before (next time you see her parents, ask them about a near accident involving one tiny human!), but it had been quite a while.
We checked out the visitor center first, which had some great history and geological exhibits about the system of caves that comprises Mammoth Cave, got the requisite stamp in our National Park passport, picked up our respective souvenirs (Mel collects National Park patches, I collect National Park magnets, and have a crap-ton of them displayed at my desk at work), then met up with our tour group to head on into the cave.
After heading down the staircase at the entrance, the first section of the cave that you come to is the portion where saltpeter was mined to support much of the gunpowder supply necessary to fight the war of 1812. You can even see some of the hollowed-out logs that were used as pipes for the transportation of water during the mining process. What an undertaking that must have been with lanterns as your only light source in the pitch-black of the caves!
At one point in the tour, the guides turn off all of the lights along the path so you can experience the complete and total darkness that exists in the bowels of a massive cave. It really is unlike any other level of darkness you can possibly imagine - even our interior cabin on Cayamo still had a small sliver of light peeking out from under the door. In the cave though, you literally cannot see your hand directly in front of your face. It's a pretty extreme experience!
It was neat to see the names burned onto the ceiling of the cave in soot from the lanterns of yesteryear. Although this is clearly a form of graffiti, which would land someone in big trouble if the did the same in our modern era, you can't help but feel that it is also a very real connection with the cave's history, and those explorers who came before you. It makes me wonder if people a century from now will feel the same way about our spray-painted graffiti on bridges and buildings. Somehow I doubt it, but you never really know. It is fairly mind-boggling to see a name with " '74' " in soot next to it, and realize this refers to 1874, not 1974.
We also got to wind our way through a tight little area with just enough room for your feet to shuffle through, having to bend down in the narrow tunnel at one point as well. Just a few hundred feet further down the cave, you come across the bottomless pit, where there obviously is a bottom, but you can't see it. Then you enter a room where the cave suddenly expands, and the next thing you know you're climbing hundreds of stairs back up to the original level of the cave you entered into. Fun way to spend a Sunday!
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