September 19, 2008
Remember when we were in Gainesville, Florida? Of course you do. Well, Uncle Kevin told us that Mammoth Caves National Park was a must-see if we were to pass through Kentucky. So, what the hey? We went to Mammoth Caves National Park.
We snagged a spot in the campground which, apparently, is the college dormitory of campgrounds. The tents were packed together like sardine cans. Nevertheless, it gave us the opportunity to show off our new Bass Pro Shop lanterns to the other campers, and to cook some rice in our Bass Pro Shop teflon cooking pots. One of the lanterns broke immediately and the pots weren’t as non-stick as their packaging claimed. Oh well.
![ky-mamcaves-camp1 ky-mamcaves-camp1](https://wanderlustromp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ky-mamcaves-camp1.jpg?w=470&h=626)
Our campsite in the precious moments before all our neighbors moved in.
But the campground obviously isn’t the big draw of the park. We called the hotline for the National Parks Service and made a reservation for a guided tour. We’d wanted to sign up for something called the Wild Cave Tour, a six-hour long slog for only the most athletic visitors. There must have been quite a few athletic people staying there that weekend, because we had to settle for the half-as-long Introduction to Caving tour.
![Group on Introduction to Caving Group on Introduction to Caving](https://i0.wp.com/www.nps.gov/maca/planyourvisit/images/tour-intro.jpg)
Here is a picture we stole from the Mammoth Caves’ website. The idea of bringing an expensive camera down into the dirty, damp, darkness didn’t strike us as the best idea.
We met our guide, Sarah, at the visitor center where she checked everyone’s boots to make sure they were ankle-length or higher. Luckily, everyone in the group of a dozen or so passed grade. It’s a good thing Caitlin was wearing her brand-new Bass Pro Shop hiking boots.
Sarah then brought us around back where we met our assistant-guide, April, and were given knee pads, helmets, and head lamps. As soon as we were all suited-up, it was on the school bus and to the mouth of the cave. Sarah gave us a little history of the area (booooring) and laid down the basics of caving: call back helpful instructions to the person behind you, and make sure you always have three points contact with the rock. The butt is only one point of contact, and the head doesn’t count.
![tour-frozenniagara tour-frozenniagara](https://wanderlustromp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/tour-frozenniagara.jpg?w=470)
We entered the caves, the longest interconnected system in the world, through a metal door in the side of a boulder. With only the light of our headlamps, we headed down a series of winding staircases. We descended about 300 feet before the real caving experience began. The further we went, the narrower the tunnels became. We were clambering over rocks that haven’t seen the light of day since they were sediment millions of years ago and it really felt like we were entering into some holy place. The only animal life we saw down there were a few beetles and pale crickets. The cave cricket population apparently suffers from a flesh-eating fungus that is transfered from cricket to cricket by touch. Within a few hours of being infected, the fungus completely covers the crickets in a white puff ball. We saw quite a few of these rather morbid marshmallows.
Our guides also liked to play tricks on us. They talked a lot about how easy it is to get lost in a cave, but the tunnels seemed to only lead in one direction. To prove their point, Sarah would lead us in circles and see if anyone caught on, and April would disappear and then pop out at us from tiny holes in the wall. So when getting to romp around in caves for a living isn’t exciting enough, make sure to mess with your tour groups.
At quite a few points, we had to do belly crawls through the ancient sand. Calcium had leeched down through the rocks, the low ceilings were usually covered in brittle, yet razor-sharp, gypsum formations. Andy learned about this fact the hard way, but at least his helmet was put to good use.
About two hours into our adventure, we came to a relatively large room and all sat down for a rest. Sarah had us turn out our headlamps so we could really get a feel for just how oppressively dark and silent the caves were. The brain likes to play tricks, so even in complete darkness — without one single photon bouncing around — we still saw shapes moving around. Creepy. Sarah told us a story about a friend of hers who, on a caving expedition with a bunch of other people, took a nap while they were all sitting in the dark. When she woke up, she was annoyed to see everyones’ faces clearly and she told them to turn off their headlamps — except, none of them had turned them back on in the first place. To everyone else, the room was completely dark but this one person could tell everyone exactly how they were moving. The group decided to move on.
We didn’t see anything as cool as auras, but we did prove for once and all that biting into a mint lifesaver does, indeed, make a blue spark. No joke.
The whole experience came to a head at The Keyhole, which is a hole through the rock so small that someone might expect that only something very small — say, a key — might fit. Not only was it narrow, but it the far side was several feet higher and we were forced to pull ourselves up and through. To make matters more interesting, the far side was also a puddle. No one escaped without getting good and muddied.
By hour three, we were all glad that we hadn’t signed up for the Wild Cave Tour and were thrilled to see the light of day. Sarah let us all know that we were officially cavers now (not spelunkers. Spelunking is for the amateurs) and we all went home with a souvenir helmet.
But the story doesn’t end there! We’d had enough of the narrow passages and cramped campgrounds, but not nearly enough physical exertion. The next day, we went down to the ranger station and reserved two nights at one of the back country campsites. It was time to put our fancy hiking gear to work.
Being the experienced hikers we are, we filled those backpacks with nice, heavy canned food and several liters of water. Andy even tied the axe onto his pack for good measure. The site was only 2.3 miles away, which is definitely closer than is sounds, right? Right?
We got off to a bad start by missing the trailhead all-together and walking a half mile down a dirt road. Trail maps should really be made to scale. Andy put down his pack and ran ahead to see if he could find the trailhead, and when he couldn’t, Caitlin put down her pack and ran back to the car to make a call to the ranger station.
Once we finally got on the right trail, the sun was getting low on the horizon so we had to walk quickly. 2.3 miles seems a lot longer when you’re carrying 30 pounds and going up and down a rocky path. Maybe we wanted to give up at a few points, but we didn’t. And we got to our campsite just in time for set up camp and get a fire going.
![andy-ky andy-ky](https://wanderlustromp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/andy-ky.jpg?w=470&h=626)
Andy isn’t tired, sweaty, or dirty in the least.
![back camp ky back camp ky](https://wanderlustromp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dscf7965.jpg?w=470&h=352)
Our home-sweet-home for two nights. If idyllic wilderness settings aren’t worth back pain, than what is?
![dscf7975 dscf7975](https://wanderlustromp.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dscf7975.jpg?w=470&h=352)
Our campsite was on the banks of a perfect little slow-moving, snaking river and down in the gully below a crescent-shaped ridge where we felt protected and contented. When half your day is lugging and splitting logs or sanitizing water, life’s problems really do seem easier to handle. The only problem was that, even though the owls sang us to sleep at night, life’s problems woke us up in the mornings with not-that-distant gunshots and the revving of ATV engines. Later, we learned that we were in a portion of the park close to private land and were really in no danger, but that’s far less fun. The only people we saw were a few rangers drive by in a boat, and a group of horseback riders that rode to the edge of our ridge and then left. When the engine sounds started up again on our second night, we decided (read: Andy enticed) us to go on a “midnight mission to find their source. We got tired about a half mile up the trail, and the only thing we found was some weird weasel-thing peering at us from the bushes.
All-in-all, life in the back country was good and we wished we’d spent another night out there — until we thought about what it would have been like to carry in even more canned food.
Our packs were much lighter by the time we left, but the hike out was when danger struck. While we were taking a breather at the halfway-point, Caitlin noticed a tiny tick on her arm. She then noticed another a few inches away. And another. And then a hundred or so more. Somehow, we’d walked through a batch of freshly-hatched ticks (seed ticks, for those in the know) and were covered in more of the little jerks than we’d seen in our lives. At the time, we were worried that they were deer ticks — the kind that carry lime disease — because they were so small, so we had a nice and panicked tick-removal session that involved a lot of frantic swiping. When we got back to the car, we immediately changed clothes and as soon as we got back to the park center, we scrubbed ourselves like we were getting ready for the prom and changed into a second set of fresh clothes. Even after all that, Andy spotted one crawling on him.
Pretty much, bugs love trying to eat us alive.
So, Kentucky, thanks for the journey to the center of the earth (with no secret dinosaur world, unfortunately), but you can keep your hordes of infant ticks. We still don’t know what these bumps around our ankles and wrists are.
Our next adventure: Old friend, boring town.