Saturday, October 17, 2009

Mammoth Cave

We ended our fabulous Tour d'East Coast on a high note at our lowest point: Mammoth Cave National Park.  Mammoth Cave is the earth's longest cave at 367 miles (that we know of).  The park offers a wide variety of cave tours that you need to book early.  I couldn't decide between seeing why it's called Mammoth Cave and seeing splendid stalactites and stalagmites, so we did two tours: the Historic Tour and the Frozen Niagara Tour.

The Historic Tour was probably the most interesting.  Through a dry cave and over two miles, you don't see anything that caves are really famous for (i.e. stalactites), but you are enveloped in the grand scale of the cave.  It starts you in a large room called the Rotunda, since the ceiling is a giant circle and walks you down through parts of the cave that have been used by humans for over 4,000 years.  Along the way you learn about how slaves mined for saltpeter deposits that may have helped us win the War of 1812 by providing us with gunpowder materials after the British cut us off from the gunpowder trade and other interesting tidbits like about the eyeless fish in the river still carving out sections of the cave hundreds of feet below where we walked.  Note: It was proven long ago that the cave does not cure tuberculosis.  Sorry, now you've got to think of another way to beat your consumption.


The Rotunda

The Historic Tour also takes you through a place called "Fat Man's Misery", a very skinny, winding section you have to duck and squeeze through for several minutes.  This was my favorite part and, as our guide pointed out, some of us polish the rock as we go by more than others.

The second tour was short and sweet: Frozen Niagara.  This section of the cave is still being formed by water, so you get the fantastic formations.  You also get cave crickets and spiders, where the other part of the cave could not support life (no water or food)!  A very cool place, if you're ever in the area!


Stalactites


The Frozen Niagara


Cavern Wonders

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