Springs, Drips and Domes

We had a very busy day today. I convinced John that we should do a ‘short’ hike this morning around the visitor’s center. It ended up being a little over 4 miles but we got to see the Echo River Spring and the River Styx Spring. Even though the River Styx is a river in Hades it is a pretty spring that also comes out of the bottom of Mammoth Cave. We viewed the forests for miles around from the Sunset Point, climbed hills, spotted an old stone cabin and enjoyed the cooler weather.

Our second tour into Mammoth Cave began at a different entrance than yesterday.  We learned that there are 23 possible ways to enter the cave but only 5 are used on a regular basis.  The entrance yesterday was the Historic Entrance, today’s tour began at the New Entrance and we came out at the Frozen Niagara Entrance. The other two entrances are used mostly by spelunkers.

The New Entrance is manmade as an enterprising individual wanted to capitalize on the popularity of Mammoth Cave but have his own tour not connected to the main cave. He found a spot where cool air was coming out, blew it up with dynamite and found a 252 foot open column or Dome that dropped down to a floor that would eventually be found to connect to the Rotunda Room. The first tourists in this entrance descended by rope, then by wooden stairs. Between 1965 and 1985 no one went into this part of the cave until the National Park Service spent $1 million to build a 280-step steel staircase. In most places the steps were no wider that our shoulders with rocks jutting out over the stairs in many places and water dripping on our heads. But it was amazing to see and to experience.

The Dome column is considered a living, vertical cave because the water is still carving out the rock. The next portion of the tour was in a room that was very dry and unchanged over thousands of years. It is considered a dormant cave. The last room we were in is considered a dying cave. It has lots of stalactites and stalagmites, dripstone formations and wondrous ceilings. It is called a dying cave because eventually it will fill back up with the limestone formations.  But that won’t happen for millions of years.

In the meantime we certainly enjoyed the beauty of these formations. There was the Frozen Niagara Falls, Bacon formation and other interesting stalagmites that waved like curtains from the ceiling.