Monday, November 2, 2015

NP#52 - Mammoth Cave NP



 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.