Sept 27th - our 52nd park visit.
Natural Entrance
Inside Mammoth Cave
Cave formations
Cave Drippings!
Great place to eat and stay in Park City, KY…just south of Mammoth Cave National Park
Magic peach and honey brandy served here!
What now remains of Bell's Tavern.
Another Cave Tour Option…and a good one at that!
Inside Diamond Caverns.
Colorful calcite drapery
Cascading squid!
For over 150 years, Diamond Caverns has been offering tours of Kentucky's most beautiful cave system.
Sept 27, 2015 - Mammoth Cave National Park, KY.
Park #52 was originally scheduled to be a part of my 2015 -
2016 Business Development Workshop Series, which I had planned to kick off in
Nashville and Memphis on Sept 29th and Sept 30th. The business trip was not to materialize due
to the fact that on Sept 11th, Ewing cancelled ALL of my workshops
for the upcoming season! Now officially retired, (at least from Ewing) Terry
and I would still visit our 52nd park without being disturbed by
work!
Mammoth Cave is the world’s longest known cave system with
over 400 miles of surveyed tunnels weaving their way underneath the hills of
Kentucky. Visitors to Mammoth Cave can explore this underground labyrinth by
reserving space on one of a number of cave tours offered by the Park Service.
As Terry and I discovered, advanced reservations are recommended for the more
popular tours (such as the Grand Avenue Tour) as they do sell out!
We opted for the moderately rated Domes and Dripstones Tour
– a two-hour, ¾ mile trek down into deep pits, high domes and large underground
canyons. A 280-step staircase takes you
down a vertical cave shaft before leveling off and leading you to the Frozen
Niagara formation. As you exit this portion of the cave system, you’ll be
treated to the cave’s most decorative dripstone area.
Although impressive, Mammoth Cave and the Domes and
Dripstones Tour did not impress us nearly as much as the tours we took while
exploring Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Much of what we saw reminded me of
wandering through an underground rock quarry. Lots of jagged boulders, not much
in the way of cave formations until you reach the final 1/8 of a mile section
of this tour, which can also be experienced by taking the Frozen Niagara Tour.
After exiting the Caves, we sought out a place for lunch. A
Park Ranger suggested we head into nearby Park City and seek out a newly
renovated Bed and Breakfast called the Grand Victorian Inn. What a delight! Our lunch was incredible. The
service and hospitality impeccable and the newly refurbished Inn would have
been where we had stayed had we not been checked into the Hampster Inn in Horse
Cave, KY!
While enjoying our lunch and chatting it up with the fellows
who were involved with the Grand Victorian remodel project, the proprietor of
the Inn, Karin Carroll, recommended we visit the historic Diamond Caverns. She
said this cave system was much more spectacular than those found within the
National Park. It couldn’t hurt to explore, so we did!
We arrived at Diamond Caverns at ten minutes until two. We
were the only people in the “visitor’s center” and asked if the 2:00 pm tour
was still available. The Clerk smiled politely and replied, “you’ll be the only
one’s on the tour!”
Sure enough, we had a private viewing of this incredibly
beautiful cave filled with thousands of stalactites, stalagmites and flowstone
formations. One of the more interesting aspects of this tour was our Guide’s
knowledge of the Kentucky Cave Wars. Mammoth Cave is one of the oldest tourist
attractions in North American with cave tours beginning in 1816...long before
this area became a National Park!
As he told it, in the early 1900’s there were many private
“cave owners,” who were all vying for tourist dollars. Bitter “wars” broke out
between the owners of Colossal Cave, Long Cave, Short’s Cave, Crystal Cave an
others. When I asked our Guide about the broken cave formations, he said that
most of it was from competing cave owners who set out to disfigure their
competitors caves by breaking apart the stalactites and stalagmites.
In addition, motorists headed for the world-famous Mammoth
Cave were being stopped by Cave competitors and told “Mammoth Cave has been
flooded by recent rains...however, Colossal Cave just up the road is high and
dry and available for a tour!”
It’s amazing how the pursuit of the almighty dollar twists
and taints people’s brains! Nevertheless, we enjoyed our visits to both the
main event – Mammoth Cave National Park and to our side trip to Diamond
Caverns.
