Fashionista Caving

After a good night’s sleep and a morning cup of joe, we arrived at the visitor’s center to take our morning History Tour. At the mouth of the cave – the original and historic entrance, we were happy to have brought long sleeves because there was a strong and chilly breeze blowing out of the cave. In the winter, the breeze blows the opposite direction and the cold outside air blows into the warmer cave. Mammoth Cave is a constant 56* and was welcome after steamy yesterday.

On our Historic Tour we learned about Mammoth Cave’s previous owners and uses. Native Americans used the cave primarily to collect gypsum, though what they used it for is unknown. During the war of 1812, workers used cave dirt to make a solution that was then used in the production of saltpeter, the main ingredient in gunpowder. After the was over the cave was abandoned for a while and then the tourists started to arrive on lantern led tours. The part of Mammoth Cave that we saw was mostly dry and as a result it was just a rocky sort of hole in the ground. There were passages and a large round room, but none of the features of karst topography like flowstone, stalactites, and stalagmites. We did cross two very deep holes on grate bridges and squeeze through a windy passage called Fat Man’s Misery (see photo of skinny Lauren). About half way through the tour, miracle of miracles, there was a flush toilet (and apparently near nothing on the surface). We ended the tour going up this crazy complex of stairs that allowed us climb three hundred or so feet up in a dome area. It was interesting – but mostly rocky cave with pretty boring walls and few features. Upon exiting the cave we hit a nasty wall of hot humid air that had been developing outside while we were in the cave.

After our first tour, we had a picnic in the grass, and with more time wasting needed we headed into Cave City to be pretend to be Tacky Tourists. We stopped outside Dinosaur world to take our photo with a few of the giants. Then we perused the gift shop. Then we zig zagged back down the street to a few junk shops with the weirdest randomest crap before we couldn’t take it any longer. We got back to the visitor’s center where we hid from the rain in the car, I typed a blog entry, and Lauren took a nap.

At the appropriate time we donned our boots – mine the new green boots from the Goodwill, grabbed our long sleeves and went to meet our guide for Introduction to Caving, a three hour excursion that required helmets and knee pads. They were not kidding about the boots. Our guide scrutinized length and tread making folks pull up their pant legs to prove they covered the ankles. My were over scrutinized and deemed unsure. I had to go show them to the head man inside the office to see if he approved them. I assured them of my experience in caving all the while sweating and praying that my three dollar goodwill boots would be good enough to pass inspection. I passed barely- mostly because they laced up. In truth they probably offer no ankle protection, and they told me they were snow boots – which made sense because of the fuzzy warm lining, but I passed and was able to go on the tour and that is all that matters.

Next we gathered our hard hats, helmet lights, and kneepads and laoded onto the bus. On the bus we put on our knee pads while the lady droned on and on about cave safety. Knee pads are really difficult to put on anyway, but Lauren’s were especially difficult because she got a pair that was a medium – the size she wanted and an extrasmall. Oops. I laughed at her but she did get it on. Supportive is the word she used to describe it. We entered through the ‘New Entrance’ which is a man made entrance down lots and lots of metal stairs. This entrance has more of the flowstone and features that you expect to see on a cave tour. We didn’t spend much time however, becase we needed to get off the trail and start caving. This tour was pretty interesting. It really was an intro to caving calss because we spent most of the time climbing up and over things instead of looking around. We did more than a few rinkydinks where we started in one room and passed through it a couple fo times by looping over, under, right, and left. I am rpetty sure I noticed every time we did that, but it would be hard in a larger section of cave. The caving adventure took a long time, but it didn’t seem like it. Our two guides complemented the group on how well we worked together and helped guide each other over rough passages with even more directions than they passed back.

After caving we were not as dirty as we expected, but decided that the token shower was necessary. We purchased our tokens from a cute clerk at the store and checked out the showers. The showers run for ten minutes and start off fairly warm. Ten minutes. I don’t know how long I took but I felt like I spent forever just sitting under the water waiting for it to turn off. It seemed silly, but as long as the water was running I felt like I should be under it. Feeling refreshed we went over to the restaurant in the park for dinner. Over dinner, Lauren and I tried to plan out the rest of our time in Kentucky because soon it will be over. We have a sort of plan, but I think we are happy with it. Dinner was delicious, though a bit more expensive than we thought. After dinner, we did some internet and reading and headed back to the tent.

I wanted to sleep with both tent flaps open like we had the night before to promote air flow, but Lauren had heard the forecast for thunderstorms and would have none of it. I told her it would wake us up and we could shut the flaps – but she was not convinced. So I left mine open and fell asleep. And when it started to thunder she woke me up and I closed it. So she should have left hers open too.