Mammoth Cave

This is the story of my trip to Mammoth Cave this summer. I jotted down thoughts soon after the trip, but did not officially write a blog. It's time to catch up.

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It really was a whirlwind trip, one day down, a day at the caves and a day to drive back. We met Roger's parents, who drove up from South Carolina. A step back in time for Roger, who used to vacation there with his family when he was a boy.

Mammoth Cave, I found out, is the longest cave system in the world, stretching and curling back on itself, layer upon layer, five layers deep. Three hundred sixty-seven miles of tunnel and cavern have been discovered so far, and more is being explored all the time.

There are a number of tours you can take of Mammoth Cave, ranging from the easiest stroll to the most challenging crawl through tunnels and shafts. We took a moderate three hour tour, the “Snowball Tour,” named for the “Snowball Room,” the deepest spot of our day. More about that later.

The six of us got our tickets and strolled out to where the tour was supposed to start. We sat and waited while forty or fifty others gathered, milling around. A slight older woman in a park ranger's uniform stood up on a bench and informed us she would be our guide. I thought this tour must be easier than I thought. She began asking people where they were from. North Carolina. Germany. Kentucky. She kept saying, “I've been there.” Then she explained that most of the year she's a concert pianist. She's located nearby in Bowling Green, fell in love with the Cave years ago and, although she's 73, she guides tours to keep herself busy during the summer. I immediately liked her.

We boarded an old, rickety bus and rode to the start of our tour, a blasted entrance. From there we descended almost 200 steps to a starting point deep in the cave. I was a little disappointed at first. There were none of the spectacular formations you associate with these deep caves—the stalactites and stalagmites, the sparkling frozen mineral falls. A solid sandstone cap keeps the cave free of the water a cave needs to form those wonders.

Just limestone rocks here. Rocks and rooms and an elliptical tunnel connecting everything. They called it “Cleaveland Avenue,” and the guide bragged about this and that as we went along. Eventually we did come to some gypsum formations. Gypsum is a crystal that forms along the walls and ceiling. It forms throughout the world's caves in lots of different shapes. In Mammoth we saw gypsum growing off the walls and curling back on itself like hag's claws.

From about 4,000 years ago until the time of Christ humans came into the cave and collected the gypsum. Nobody knows what they did with it, but in the shallower parts of the cave there's none left. Then about 2,000 years ago evidence of humans completely disappears from Mammoth. Until it was re-discovered around 1800 or so.

So our tour reached its lowest spot at the “Snowball Room,” named for the odd shape of the gypsum on the ceiling there.



A cafe has been set up in the Snowball Room, and traditionally people take a lunch there. After grabbing a snack I took my camera around and captured some historical graffiti.

I wonder what was in Hoofland's Tonic.


To Nick the Guide. 1857.



“Nick” was a tour guide. He started life as a slave, hired out by an owner for this job. He eventually bought his freedom and by the time this graffiti was scrawled he was a free man, paid for his services as a guide.

Too soon it was time to head back. I had underestimated our tour guide. She stayed ahead of the pack and kept a steady pace the whole way, cool and crisp as others panted and sweated. This was one of two tours she leads every day. Six hours a day underground. I wondered how anyone could endure that.

I was surprised at how different the tour was on the way back. We stopped from time to time to check out this and that, formations and tunnels that maybe weren't quite as visible on the way down. Or maybe we were too intent on getting down to our grotto food, and wouldn't have been so keen to stop for every little thing.

On one stop the guide asked for absolute silence. Unexpectedly, she stomped the hard sandstone floor, and something like an echo was heard. There was a cavern beneath us. It was an amazing sound, a deep, groaning note. Eerie. Then she asked us to all hum the note, and led us in it. We hummed, steadily, until she directed us to stop. We did. We stopped, and the cave kept humming, that deep, groaning note. Not an echo of us, but a harmonic resonance, uniquely belonging to the cave. Like the sound you get when you blow into the second octave of a pennywhistle. Each whistle, to my ears, sounds like what it's made of. An aluminum sounds like metal. Copper sounds like a different metal. PVC always sounds like plastic to me. The cave sounded like—well, it sounded like a cave. The cave's voice.

When she asked for questions on that stop, I could have asked about a dozen, but I just asked if that was the only note the cave did. She said yes, we could hum any note we wanted to, but the cave would answer with that note, which incidentally, she said, was a “C.”

I wish I could take a Bb penny whistle back down with me. I could play “Wayfaring Stranger,” and listen to the cave play the last note, a C, when I finished. I wish I could, but I have no desire to awaken the bats. You know what I mean?

We walked further. From time to time people spontaneously hummed a “C,” hoping to hear the cave's voice, but it's really best at those spots where tunnels branch away into answering caverns. Still, I found myself humming the C, too, just hoping.

After a bit we stopped as she did the obligatory “lights out” you get on any good cave tour. They doused the lights and our eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. It takes a minute, you know. Then we were absolutely quiet and listened to the cave. No hum at this point, but with our visuals gone there was a heightened awareness of a light-hearted splashing of water coming down from a hole drilled years ago for some long-forgotten pipe. It splashed. We listened. Then a click and a hiss, and the light from a single government-issue Bic lighter leaped out and defeated the darkness. To our hungry eyes, a feast. In that moment I realized light is immensely stronger than darkness. A cavern of darkness overcome by a single smallish, flickering flame. No army needed. Just the one.

Then the electric lights went back on, we walked to the end, and the dreaded climb up the 200 steps. Fascinating as it all was, and even though we were leaving behind a comfortable, cool 52 degrees to return to a steamy hot day, the sunlight was a relief to us, the surface dwellers, most at home under the sun. We climbed back into the rickety bus to return to the tour center. My family and I strolled down to the original cave entrance, the beginning of some of the other tours. It was such a nice feeling—that cool geothermal air pouring out to relieve us on a hot day.



There is, of course, a souvenir shop. The kids bought some things, but I didn't. I'll remember the day for something you can't buy there. I find myself haunted by the voice of the cave.