Kentucky

Ah, Kentucky, the home of Daniel Boone. This state is renowned for beautiful farms, white fences, the Kentucky Derby, Louisville Slugger, caves, fast women and beautiful horses! Hmmmm, maybe I got the last ones backwards.

We are staying in a nice RV park in Cave City, named for the many caves found in this area. One of them is very large, Mammoth Cave. Discovered over 4000 years ago, this cave was used by indigenous people as a burial site and also for minerals found in the cave walls. Artifacts found in the cave suggest that these people had explored as much as 10 miles of tunnels but early usage had stopped about 2000 years ago. In modern times the cave was rediscovered in 1798. We have been in other caves but none like this one. Mammoth Cave is the most extensive cave system on Earth, hence the name. Over 390 miles of tunnels have been mapped and explored and new areas are continually being discovered. The extent of this cave system will probably never be known and is twice as long as any other known cave. Some estimates say another 600 miles of tunnels may exist.

Mammoth Cave is a bit different from other caves. The area above measuring approximately 80 sq miles has thick layers of sandstone overlaying layers of limestone. The cavern is formed by ground water absorbing carbon dioxide and forming a mild acid which then dissolves the limestone. The strong sandstone layer keeps the overburden from collapsing the cavern ceiling and the cave just continues to grow. This cave does not have beautiful mineral deposits growing from roof and floor as many other cave systems do. The cave is unique in its large size. In essence a conduit for ground water, recent spring rains in the area had flooding to heights as much as 49 ft above flood level. Mammoth Cave was not spared and it flooded also and benches and other items floated all over the cave until the waters receded and the cave dried out.

Mammoth Cave has been an attraction since the early 1800s. During the War of 1812 the cave was mined for nitrates deposited on the cave floor over the years by periodic flooding. These nitrates were used as an essential ingredient in the manufacture of black gun powder. Prior to 1812, saltpeter was acquired from India at about 10 cents per pound. As a Crown Colony, exports from India ceased during the war and the price of saltpeter rose to 1$ per pound with almost 500,000 pounds produced from this cave system. In 1816 the idea of attracting tourists to this area to see the cave became popular and the National Park was authorized in 1926. The Park was not fully established until 1941 and at that time only 40 miles of passageways had been explored. Actually, there were Cave Wars in the 1920s as surrounding land owners realized that there were probably caverns beneath their property. Holes were blasted and tunnels were found but the properties that comprise the Park today were slowly being acquired and put an end to the wars.

Today, Mammoth Cave is established as a World Heritage Site

We took one of the easy tours which avoided crawling through narrow slots and ducking under 3 foot ceilings. The cave was too large to photograph as the flash was not powerful enough illumination. It was cool, dark and mammoth!