Mammoth Cave

Historical cave markings

Mammoth Cave was quite a revelation! I expected lots of stalactites and stalagmites and there were none of those. What it is, is about 391 miles of explored underground area. Mammoth is the most mammoth (sorry, I couldn’t resist) cave system in the world. It’s in an area of many other caves and it is known that Mammoth connects with other caves because they have done dye tests with the streams running through Mammoth to other caves in the vicinity. But they cannot claim the caves connect until a human actually goes from one cave to another. Every weekend, spelunkers explore more and more of the cave systems in the area and the ranger who led our tour expects sooner or later that they will prove that Mammoth joins with other caves. That will make it bigger, but it’s already the biggest so really, who cares?

Fat Man's Misery

We took the Historic Tour which went in the original entrance and went about two hours and two miles and was rated “moderate.” I successfully lobbied Randy to NOT take the four and a half hour tour that was rated “strenuous.” Even so we had to worm our way through Fat Man’s Misery—our Ranger has only once had to turn someone away from Fat Man’s Misery: she weighed 400 pounds and was pregnant! Tall Man’s Misery wasn’t as bad. Other than those two areas, it was just a two mile stroll in what would have been pitch black if not for the occasional light.

Unfortunately there is a lot of graffiti in the caves; before 1941 it isn’t graffiti, however, it is historic.

Another difference is that they don’t mine guano in Mammoth but they do mine gypsum—or rather they DID mine gypsum for many years. And we learned that gypsum is an ingredient in Twinkies. Perhaps that’s why there is a 20 year old Twinkie that appears still edible?