You are in a little twisty maze of passages, all different
News ·Sunday March 17, 2002 (link)
The following is borrowed from an article I wrote for Imprint's features section, March 22, 2002. There are also photos here.
This weekend I decided to do some exploring. On the drive down [to Memphis] I'd passed an exit to Mammoth Cave, near Bowling Green, Kentucky, and I'd heard it was an interesting place to visit. Saturday morning dawned bright and clear; I left at 5am and took the I-40 east to Nashville, then headed north on the I-65 to Louisville. Mammoth Cave National Park is about half-way between Nashville and Louisville; the whole drive took me about 4 hours, and the Cave visitor centre said it was 300mi (please don't do the math).
Their web site does a good job of describing the area and the cave tours, which are led by rangers and take between 1/2 hour (Discovery Tour) to 6 hours (Wild Cave Tour). Inside the visitor centre monitors show times for upcoming tours. I decided to take the 4 1/2 hour Grand Avenue Tour, which overlaps some of the Frozen Niagara and Travertine Tours. Tours are approximately $4/hour; the Grand Avenue was $18, but it's well worth it.
Before the tour started I wandered around the walks near the visitor centre, photographing the landscape (which is very much like the Niagara Region, barring the sinkholes, of course). I scrambled down a muddy slope (it had rained on the drive up) to the Echo River Spring, walked into the Mammoth Dome Sink, and viewed the (now closed) White Cave. My tour started at 11, and I had to run to get back on time, since I'd stopped to photograph several deer I'd seen grazing in the woods on the way back.
One ranger leads the tour, and another brings up the rear to catch stragglers (our guide told us about a man who had left his tour spent the night in the cave once; he spent the next night in jail for tresspassing). We entered via the Carmichael entrance, blasted out decades ago, down about 180 steps into the bowels of the earth. On this tour there were about 100 of us, including an group of young Scouts from Ohio. When we had all assembled in an open area in the first cave along "Cleaveland Avenue" [note to eds. - yes it's spelled right] the lead ranger told us about some of the history and fauna of the caves. This is the cave that inspired Crowther and Woods to write the famous "Colossal Caves" game ("ADVENT"); many locations, such as "Bedquilt" are named for rooms in this cave.
Because of an insulating top layer of sandstone (most of the cave is limestone), most of the area we walked through lacked the usual formations - stalactites, stalagmites, and columns - seen in caves, formed by the slow deposition of minerals by water. All along the way as we walked, the front guide pressed buttons set at intervals to turn on the subtle diffuse cave
lights and the ranger at the back turned them off.
We walked four miles; after leaving Cleaveland Avenue, we stopped for lunch at the Snowball Room (called that because of the gypsum on the walls, which make it look like a snowball fight has taken place there), 267 feet below the surface. There are restrooms and a cafeteria ("Burger Cave") with picnic tables there, as well as an elevator to the surface ("last chance to quit"). The Wild Cavers (on a tour for experienced cavers; they wore overalls, helmets with lamps, and I'm sure they all had beards; think CSC). met us briefly there. We then turned down Boone Avenue, which is a high and narrow sinuous corridor, and saw a few cave crickets (over 180 species have been found in the cave, from spiders to bats and eyeless fish), joined Kentucky Avenue, and then climbed Mount McKinley to Grand Central Station. The Drapery Room and Frozen Niagara were worth waiting for; formations abound (beware; damaging formations or removing so much as a rock is a federal offence!).
During the tour our guide turned out all the lights, so we could see how dark and silent it was; it was eerie ("It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will likely be eaten by a grue."). Xyzzy!
It's an amazing experience, very beautiful, and the ranger's monologue is very informative, plus she was very open to questions. There are 350 miles of caves that have been explored, of which I only saw a small part; I'd like to go back and try the Wild Cave tour sometime. Highly recommended to all.
On Sunday I went to Grace Gospel Chapel (the rumours of its demise are exaggerated, but sadly, not by much), at 3680 Rhodes Avenue at Robin Hood Lane (Memphis, TN 38111), which is close to the Hilton campus. There were about 12 people at the Lord's Supper, and a few more showed up for the Family Bible Hour and a luncheon after for a sister (Lois) that was retiring and moving to North Carolina. I talked to Russell Horn(e), Marlin and Barbara (he lead the singing), a young lady named Danielle, Frank (not Burgess), who spoke, Mary, Laura, and Jeff Martin, and mostly with Chuck and his dad. They made me feel very welcome and were very friendly. (Lord's Supper - 0930; Family Bible Hour - 1100; not sure about evening meeting but I don't think there is one; prayer meeting Wednesday at 1930.)
