2020 Winter Camping Trip Day4, 2020/11/29
This day we toured Mammoth Cave. Mammoth Cave National Park doesn't charge an entrance fee, but you need to buy a ticket to go into caves. Since caves is the main activity in Mammoth Cave National Park, that kind of makes sense, however, people who have National Park pass don't get any advantages. We have a pass, so we were a bit frowning faces.
Our ticket was 9:15 a.m., which is the first group of the day. Every 15 minutes, another group comes in. Face coverings are required and most people followed social distancing. Since Mammoth Cave is indeed big, I felt safe.
Mammoth Cave is huge as the name indicates. So far 365 miles/587 km is surveyed, but geologists think it would be total 600 miles/966 km! Inside the cave is quite spacious and big: I was surprised how big it was, because my image of "cave" is very narrow. The cave tour is only 2 miles, but there are a lot to see and it was really interesting.
Interesting point is not just its large size. Firstly, it is interesting geologically. Water is a key! Limestone underlies the Mammoth Cave, and s little acidic ground water keeps making limestone dissociated. This way cave is formed. Water is important for the ecosystem in the cave. Actually there are many animals living in the cave. Some animals adapted in the dark environment, such as eyeless cavefish or cave crayfish. They don't have pigments.
Secondly, history is interesting. 4000 years ago to 2000 years ago, there is proof that Native Americans used the cave. They gathered and used minerals from cave, although it is not clear what the purpose was. It might be medicine? Also the ranger said that there are some petroglyphs. They might use the cave for certain ceremonies, but that is one hypothesis. When they collected minerals, they used mussels shells to scrape rocks. For the light they used torch with log bundles that lasted about 45 minutes. It is a big mystery that why suddenly the cave use was stopped 2000 years ago. Taboo or something? Then the cave was "re"discovered in 1798.
Upon rediscovery, the cave was a place to make gunpowder by enslaved workers for War of 1812. After war was over, the cave got famous and people started visiting. Later in 1926 Mammoth Cave was authorized as a national park.
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| Entrance |
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Inside the Mammoth Cave
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| Christmas tree in the cave |
The entrance (left above). Unexpectedly inside the cave was quite dry and only water I saw was this dripping at the the entrance.
Inside is quite large, wind and high ceiling as shown in the above right picture. For tour hours there are minimal lights are on. For walking, the nice path is created and easier to walk.
There are large open area in the cave after about 0.5 mile from entrance, and rangers put a Christmas tree there. In front of the tree a ranger was standing and greeting people and explaining about cave and answering questions. Not only there but every 0.3 mile a ranger was standing and explained stuff and answered questions. They had masks and people made social distances with them.
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gunpowder production
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Interestingly a lot of stuff from past activities remained as they are. The left picture is some equipment to make gunpowder. Oxen carried things from outside into the cave and mixed with mineral from cave rocks. Then, interestingly, that was mixed with ox blood.
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log pipe
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Enslaved workers hollowed logs and made a long pipe. Water at the entrance was carried via log into the cave at the gunpowder production site. You can see in the picture hollowed log is sharpened at the edge and connected to the next hollowed log to make a long pipe. How could humans hollow such long log? I asked a standing ranger, but she didn't understand my English. Then Mr.N asked the question for me. The ranger said it was hollowed by hands. I don't think so! The logs are longer than hands! I believe that she didn't know the answer.
Another interesting purpose of cave usage was Tuberculosis patients stayed here in the cave. In the past TB cause was not known as bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and some people thought this cave environment helps healing it. Obviously no for the current knowledge. At that time patients were talking with visitors (by that time cave was an attraction to visit), and they didn't follow social distancing practice. As a result some cave visitors got TB. It was a bit funny since social distancing is a timely topic.
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Inside the cave
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Cave and path
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I learned a lot about Mammoth cave! Due to COVID, only the biggest cave was open, but next time I am interested in touring more caves. After we toured the Mammoth Cave, we hiked around a little. In the Mammoth Cave National Park, of course caves are the main attraction, but hiking trails are also offered. We hiked a couple of miles and checked out the Whites Cave. Actually really small caves are everywhere along the hiking trails. Whites Cave was very small and it is not walkable (can't even enter, entrance is too small). So we just looked inside by using phone light.
It was fun!
To be continued...
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