She's the kind of friend you are lucky to find once in your life. We met in middle school and have helped each other through the awkward years since then. Together we are satisfied sharing a piano bench, getting dressed up for Sunday brunch or wandering through an old graveyard. But we especially love adventures. Often we joke that we're not having fun unless there's blood. Because between the two of us, someone usually ends up a little dinged up. This time it was me - I slammed the car trunk lid down on my forearm and pinky. All because I was worried about spilling a glass of water, which I did end up spilling by the way. Luckily the force was perfectly distributed so that my pinky didn't get too bashed up - just one gash and enough bruising to brag about.
Even though we see less of each other now than we did during our school day, we try to make the most of the time we can share. And so Saturday morning we drove two hours south of Louisville, down highway 65 as it cuts through wide spreads of green and tree-covered knolls. Destination: Mammoth Cave.
Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world. I like that word "known" because it reminds us that there are still lots that we humans don't know and haven't figured out about what's around us. Each year volunteers continue to explore the far-reaching fingers of Mammoth Cave, mapping out more and more of this unique underground realm.
The park is over 50,000 acres and as you drive through it to reach the central hub (visitor's center, parking lots, even a hotel!) it just feels like driving through the sticks. I managed to avoid squishing a long, dark snake as it lay sunbathing on the road, and a few times we questioned if we were going the right way just because of the sheer nothingness around.
Mammoth Cave is national park, with plenty of hiking trails and kayaking on the surface to keep you occupied besides what lies beneath. In order to view the caves, you must sign up for one of the many tours offered. Our tour was called "Domes and Dripstones", two hours long and starting at the first available time, 8:45. Our early bird spirit paid off too. Each tour has a cap of 120 people, which is quite a bit if you can imagine the sounds of 120 voices and 240 feet shuffling in the cave around you. We grinned when the ranger mentioned that there were only about 50 people in our group.
We met our tour group beneath a roofed shelter where the park ranger shared basic rules like no eating, no smoking, no restrooms in the cave. Then we boarded two hunter green buses for the short drive to the cave entrance.
There are several openings to enter the cave, one within walking distance of the park's hub. Our tour began at "the new entrance", a cement box hunched on the forest floor with a metal door and a single glowing light. I couldn't believe this was the prelude to our underground adventure. It looks like the portal in some fantasy movie leading you to another world.
What came next was one of the most uncomfortable five minutes of my life.
During our two hour drive that mornin, our excitement built about the upcoming adventure. We talked about spelunking, the hobby of cave exploration. Rachel had previously done a spelunking tour with her family somewhere in Canada, and shared that while it was fun, she had no desire to repeat it. Without ever trying it, I second her feelings. Some of the most frightful bits from books and movies I have experienced involve being confined underground. Something about it is so unnatural, so instinctively repulsive. People dream of having wings, of flying high in the air. No one dreams of groping underground in the darkness. At least no one I know.
We walked through the new entrance's metal doorway single file, Rachel first and then me. A descending staircase, with orangish bulbs periodically spaced providing just enough light to cast an eerie hue and deep shadows along the narrow passageway. And then we met the cave crickets. Clinging to the surfaces on all sides of us, alarmingly close, mere inches away, antennae waving their flesh-tingling greetings as we skittered down ever further. I'm not terribly afraid of bugs, but I also didn't foresee having so many creepy crawlies that close to my face.
Of course a cave tour must begin with a descent. After about 20 steps down, the cement tunnel as replaced with undulating waves and wrinkles of sandstone and then limestone. Our path was still narrow, the air cool and damp as our footsteps echoed off of the metal staircase, folding back and forth as it led us down through a dome, a geological formation like an upright tube.
Below on the left is a shot leaning over the stairway's rail and looking down. On the right is a shot looking straight ahead as we continue to descend, at times squeezing between chunks of rock.
Down we went. Even though my senses were tingling, telling me that nothing about this feels natural, I couldn't help but be in wonder. The caves were more vivid than any movie, more impenetrable and beautiful than anything man has made.
After the initial descent, things got more comfortable. The cave crickets only creep around near the surface, and knowing that is all the encouragement needed to keep going down.
The passageways changed as we walked along, smooth then jagged, wide chambers then narrow slips.
Occasionally our group gathered, settling onto benches arranged in some of the larger chambers. The park ranger shared history about the cave itself and man's dealings with it. I'll share just a few of the highlights.
Before coming to Kentucky, I had heard about the bluegrass. But since living here, limestone seems like the more popular subject. It gives the bourbon here its unique Kentuckian taste, and water running through it is what carved out these caves. The soft limestone is a remnant from an era before the dinosaurs, when this land was submerged, the bed of a shallow sea located south of the equator.
Several people explored the caves before it became a national park (a process that began thanks to Teddy in the 1920's but wasn't dedicated until the 1940's). In the late 19th century a doctor kept tuberculosis patients quarantined in the caves, hoping to find a cure amidst the cool, wet and dark climate. One reckless man named George Morrison wandered around beneath the surface with a cigar and handfuls of dynamite, blasting his way through and discovering some of the cave's most popular chambers and features.
Below you can see the difference between the sandstone and limestone. There's the jagged and flaky limestone that's fallen away to reveal the smooth layer of sandstone above.
Looking through these pictures, they don't seem to convey the magnitude of the place. But I hope you can still feel some of its beauty and vastness.
Below are images from a section of the cave called Frozen Niagara. It resembles a waterfall stuck in time.
This area was one of those discovered by that daring man with sticks of dynamite.
Have you seen enough of the caves yet? We hadn't. We continued snapping pictures as the park ranger bringing up the rear of our group urged us forward. As a woman just ahead mumbled to her husband that "They didn't mention it was just a bunch of rocks on Trip Advisor".
It was stunning. Afterwards, we ate our picnic lunch and glanced over the park brochure, pausing to examine its cave map. We skipped around the tiny printed words searching for the places our park ranger had named during the tour. On our two hour walk through the caves, we felt the vastness of that underground realm. Looking at this map renewed the feeling again, when we realized that our entire tour covered only one tiny bit of the known caves. I put a red box below around the area we explored. We were overwhelmed by our taste of the caves, yet there is so much more down there.
After lunch, we took a hiking trail through the woods to the aptly named Green River which runs through the park. The ranger mentioned before that there are not many creeks in the park; the water drains underground, sliding its way down until it exits the caves and joins the Green River. We stumbled upon one of the places where the cave opens up, spilling its calming trickle of water out towards the river.
It's a special treat to have a magical place like this so close to where we live. I can't wait to visit the caves again with Isaac. I'll definitely bring along my bright green rain coat again to protect me from the cave crickets.
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