Thursday, May 10
Matt Winfree and I departed from my residence in Lagrange,
Ohio at 9:00 AM under blue skies and seasonable temperatures. By 9:10AM all donuts had been consumed and
the first box of fudge rounds had been opened.
The choice of leaving at 9:00 AM was a wise one, as we missed any heavy
traffic in all three major cities we passed through… Columbus, Cincinnati and
Louisville. South of Louisville on I-65
we saw a sign for the General Patton Museum of Leadership in Fort Knox and a
decision was quickly made to check it out on the way home. We arrived at Mammoth Cave Campground at
3:00 PM (Mammoth Cave is just barely in the Central time zone). The campground to my surprise and delight
was nearly empty and we selected a site and set up camp by 3:20PM. With plenty of daylight to work with, we
went to the Visitor Center just to the north of the campground to check out
some of the trails in that area. It was
here that I discovered that my camera was without a memory card and that I
would be relying solely on my Droid for photography. We took the path behind the Visitor Center to the Historic
Entrance of Mammoth Cave, where the River Styx Spring Trail begins. The trail goes downhill to the Green River
and a spectacular view of River Styx (dried up creek that drains into a
hole). From there we took the Green
River Bluffs Trail back uphill along the river until we came to the junction of
the Dixon Cave Trail. Dixon Cave was a
deep and inspiring recess in the earth (a hole). We traced our steps back to the Green River Bluffs Trail and
continued the climb back to the Visitor Center, with one view of the Green
River. Leaving the Visitor Center, we
drove to the Cedar Sink Trail. The
trail descended to the depths of the impressive Cedar Sink (a large hole) and
back up to the car. Just down the road
was the closest restaurant I could find to the Campground, the Porky Pig
Diner. It was about 6:00PM and we were
the only people there, other than the owner (wearing a doo-rag, sleeveless
shirt, sweat pants and a cigarette) and a few employees. The waiter came up to us and told us what
the specials were, and since he didn’t give us a menu, we figured we were
expected to get one of the specials, so we both opted for the country-fried
steak. The food, along with silverware
in a plastic bag, came up in good order and was actually pretty darned good
southern-style food. The Porky Pig
Diner reminded me a lot of some old places I had eaten at in West Virginia,
except the food was good. On the way
back into the Park and with time to kill before dark, we stopped at the
Turnhole Bend Trail, a short loop trail to a view of a bend in the Green River
(obstructed glimpses of the alleged river through leaves). From there we returned to the Visitor Center
and hiked the Heritage Trail behind the Mammoth Hotel to Sunset Point and back
down into the woods via the Mammoth Dome Sink Trail to see the Mammoth Dome
Sink (small hole filled with sticks).
Hiking back up to the Heritage Trail, we witnessed a turkey make like a
helicopter and fly straight up about 30 feet into the top of a tree and paid
our respects to Stephen Bishop, a long-time guide and explorer of the cave
buried here in 1857. At dusk, the Park
becomes littered with deer. They loiter
in the campgrounds, parking lots, and anywhere else they feel like being
without regard for human activity. In
all, we counted 38 turkeys and 28 deer in our time at Mammoth Cave. Back at camp, we listened to the Indians
beat the Red Sox and General Patton’s famous speech to the Third Army before
retiring around midnight.
Friday, May 11
At around 10:00 AM we drove to the Sand Cave Trail at the
park boundary. This was a short, easy
trail to Sand Cave, which was every bit the equal of the natural wonders we saw
the previous day (a hole). We went into
Cave City, Mammoth Cave’s gateway town, for lunch at McDonalds, where I was
asked by a gentleman to come out to his car and buy some Adidas clothes for
cheap. Cave City is a tourist trap that
would fulfill all of Clark Griswold’s wildest family vacation dreams. Dinosaur World, Redneck putt-putt, Guntown
Mountain, zip line, bumper boats, go-carts, Jesse James mini-golf, a wax
museum, Huckleberry Hill Village and Fudge, Big Mike’s Mystery House, and of
course, Jellystone Park are just a few of the amazing attractions to be enjoyed
in Cave City. We returned to the
Visitor Center at 1:30PM for the Violet City Lantern Tour. This three-hour tour (a three-hour tour) is
lit by lantern only and has a more historical focus than geological. Our guide was a younger guy who was the
guide on a tour two days earlier where a visitor from Florida had a heart
attack and died in the Cave (the first fatality since the 1980s). He has a long family history with the Cave
and provided a lot of interesting information.
Our tour started off 16 people, but after an old lady (who asked the
guide a question and then told him he was wrong) was found to be on the wrong
tour, we thankfully down to 14. The
tour started at the Historic Entrance, said to have been rediscovered by a
settler in the early 1800’s who had shot and wounded a bear and followed it
into the cave. First, we came to a
large room called the Rotunda Room, where we saw the remains of a saltpeter
mining operation that was used to make gunpowder during the War of 1812. They had made a piping system out of
hollowed out poplar trees to transport the saltpeter through a solution back to
the surface. We then came to a place
called the Church, a room where services were held during the 1830’s. The preacher would climb to a ledge on the
wall and preach in front of the lantern light for up to four and five
hours. After going through a passage
called Broadway, we were told to look behind us, and the opening from which was
came when illuminated looked like the figure of a portly old woman, which was
named Martha Washington’s Ghost. Mrs.
Washington would not be flattered by this memorializing of her likeness. In the Main Cave, we saw a giant stone
called Giant’s Coffin, some Indian artifacts and two disturbing stone buildings
that were used as hospitals for tuberculosis patients, some of whom spent the
last six months of their lives without seeing the surface. We then passed through Wright’s Rotunda
(where plans were made to build a hotel but never happened) and the Cataracts
before reaching Chief City, the largest known room in the Cave at about two
acres in size. The tour ended with a
steep climb to the Violet City Entrance and out to the bus that took us back to
the Visitor Center and walked across the Lysol mats which was designed as a
precautionary step to halt the potential spread of White Nose Disease in bats
from cave to cave in the area. Now
being 5:00 PM, the search for food began.
We went to Brownsville, but didn’t really find anything we were looking
for, so we drove back to Cave City and then onto Horse City to a pizza place
called Snappy’s. It was kind of like
frozen pizza, but it was hot and good enough, also allowing me to maintain my
integrity by not going to Pizza Hut. We
stopped at Dairy Queen for Confetti Cake blizzards, the top half of which was
excellent. We returned to camp for hot
showers and bed. I heard some very
strange noises off in the distance and then very near our tent during the
night. Once I figure out how to describe
what I heard, you can read my account on the Bigfoot Research Organization’s
website.
Saturday, May 12
We arose at 9:00AM, took down camp and left our temporary
residence at Mammoth Cave Campground at 9:20AM. Our tour at 10:00AM, the Grand Avenue Tour, was sold out (70
participants). The Grand Avenue Tour is
a 4.5-hour, 4-mile tour that the park considers to be difficult because of the
terrain, which ascends and descends three levels of the cave. Our tour guide was an older guy named
Kevin. He reminded me of a character
actor that could have played a goofy cowboy in an old western on an episode of
Bonanza. He was humorous and
informative, putting on a good show.
The tour begins at the man-made Carmichael Entrance, where I resisted
the temptation to scare the bats on the wall and start a panic. We immediately went down 180 feet of stairs
and walked a long, wide tunnel called Cleaveland Avenue. Arriving at the Snowball Room (named by one
of the early guides because it looked like someone had thrown snowballs at the
ceiling) we stopped for a lunch break.
The Snowball Room was made into a cafeteria that is connected to the
surface by an elevator. The wait wasn’t
as long as I thought it would be and soon we were onto the Narrows, another
lengthy stretch of cave that is reminiscent of the slot canyons in the American
southwest. From here, the trail became
more difficult as it was constantly up and down between the three levels of the
Cave. We climbed Mount McKinley and
passed through the Grand Canyon into the “New” section of the cave, owned by
George Morrison in the 1920’s who was constantly trying to figure out how to
make more money from his section of the Cave.
The final stretch of the Cave had more of the cave formations that
people expect when they go caving, including Mammoth Cave’s most famous
formation, Frozen Niagara. After a
short wait, we were taken back to the Visitor Center, grabbed a quick shower
and left Mammoth Cave National Park. We
did go to the Patton Museum in Fort Knox, Kentucky, getting there about 20
minutes before close. The museum had
some incredibly cool exhibits, including tanks, vehicles, weapons, and
especially Patton’s famous silver plated, ivory-handled Colt .45. We drove through Louisville listening to
classic country and stopped for gas and Wendy’s near Florence, Kentucky and
eventually returned home just before midnight.
Four-dozen snack cakes were consumed on the trip.
Conclusion
Mammoth Cave is the longest known cave system in the world
at 392 miles. The size and scope of the
Cave makes it a natural wonder and the history of the cave adds to the
interest. With a constant temperature
of around 54 degrees, anytime of year would be a good time to go into the Cave
and it makes for a cool weekend road trip.
The Violet City and Grand Avenue Tours are highly recommended,
especially together because of the amount of the Cave that is covered between
the two tours. The trails offer value
only in getting some exercise or offering something to do while not in the cave. Turkeys and deer abound. In all, we hiked 5.9 miles on the surface
and 7 miles in the underworld labyrinth of Mammoth Cave.
