Note: After the trip on July 16, I went home and transcribed my
notes and experiences. This is just my reaction to this amazing trip,
which I've supplemented with minimal research. Some parts are missing
and I'll try to fill in the gaps.
Tonight
was a life-changing experience. I hope it was as meaningful to the
fantastic people with whom I got to share this adventure.
Tonight,
Chuck DeCroix and Jackie Wheet led many of us newbies on an
after-hours trip to Echo River. The tour party consisted of myself,
Brooke Armstrong, Celia Baker, Dontae Beams, Jacob Bolton, Joe Brown,
Shouta Brown, Daniel Asriel, Alissa Hampton, Amanda Hardemann, Mike Johnson, David
Kem, Ethan Mefford, Gabe Russell, Thomas Slaughter, and Logan
Steenbergen.
Having met at the Guide Lounge and obtaining
helmets and head lamps, we carpooled to the Carmichael Entrance.
Ethan, Daniel, and Jackie drove over to the Elevator Shaft and left
Ethan and Daniel's trucks there and shuttled back to Carmichael. We
entered the cave around 7:30 or so after taking a group photo.
(Thankfully, unlike on the Great Onyx Cave trip, it only took a few
tries. :))
Once we made it to the Rocky Mountains, Chuck
showed a photograph from the early tour days. Of course we noted that
the Carmichael Entrance really came into a part of the cave that took
about 8 hours to get to if visitors were on the all-day tour. The
photograph was of a wooden walkway with visitors walking over breakdown.
Chuck had determined that this was the location of the walkway and
that evidently the CCC boys tore it down when they made trails in the
cave.
We proceeded to walk off-trail and very carefully
ascended the Rocky Mountains up some slick breakdown. Jackie reminded
us of the importance of safety, given that it was an after-hours trip.
At the top we found signature rocks, a piece from the heel of a woman's
shoe, and a lot of signatures, large and small, written in smoke,
pencil, and even paint.
The highlight of this stop was
the Maelstrom, a 120-foot-deep hole. Chuck reiterated the story of Matt
Bransford having had to yell at a visitor to stop away from the steel
railing. The visitor was on an unsafe ledge where the rock was quite
thin. The visitor was upset until Matt showed him where he was standing
and the precarious nature of the ledge. Chuck also discussed the
practice of leaving calling cards and business cards around some of the
formations at Croghan's Hall. This was of course not the only location
to do this, but definitely quite an effort.
Upon
carefully descending, Jackie Wheet reminded us of just how special
these trips are. He reminded us that going on after-hours trips was a
privilege--one that could easily be taken away. Apparently there had
been a moratorium on after-hours trips after guides took advantage of
being in the cave away from visitors. I think we do have a tendency to
sometimes think the rules don't apply to us, perhaps even touching the
walls, except when we are on tour and have to set the example for
visitors.
We took off down Dismal Hollow into Cleaveland
Avenue. I had just been in this section of the cave a few hours before
when I led the Snowball tour, but I was seeing it in a new light with
our expert guides. I tried to stay close to the front of the tour
throughout, so I wouldn't miss anything they might have to tell us.
Stereograph
image of a gypsum flower at Cleaveland's Cabinet from the New York
Public Library digital collections. "View of Mammoth Cave and Vicinity."
Stopping
at the Post Office, Chuck explained the origin of the name and
explained that hole where water drips down. That is the Drill Hole,
drilled in 1931. It was drilled down 267 feet, the same depth as the
Snowball Room. Chuck showed us a photograph of a tour group at the Post
Office. The picture included Hovey, white guide John Nelson, his wife,
Orpha, Josh Wilson, a black guide, and others. Interestingly, they
were carrying luggage of some sorts that might have contained lunch,
but we're not entirely sure. The photograph was taken around 1904, long
before the Drill Hole existed. The Drill Hole was used to bring
electrical wiring down into the cave to light up Cleaveland Avenue.
Continuing
on the lengthy phreatic tube that is Cleaveland Avenue, we passed by a
Stephen Bishop signature that included Charlotte's name.
"Mrs. Charlotte Bishop/Stephen Bishop, Guide" in Cleaveland Ave. Photo by David Kem.
This
was easily accessible to show from the trail and should add to my
Snowball tour--if I can remember where it was! Between that and the
Last Rose of Summer, it's hard to remember just exactly where
everything is in Cleaveland. Stopping at the Snowball Room, we had the
opportunity to actually photograph the "To Nick, the Guide" signature
that Chuck had shown in his "The Writing On the Walls" presentation
during training, in addition to using the facilities and grabbing a
drink before continuing on.
"To
Nick, the Guide." Nick Bransford was one of the first cave guides at
Mammoth Cave. He was a slave whom Frank Gorin leased. I stole this photo
from Flickr, but David Kem took a great one, too.
We
kept walking until we got to Mary's Vineyard, which Hovey colorfully
described: "Nodules and globules simulate clusters on clusters of
luscious grapes, gleaming with parti-colored tints through dripping
dew." At the top of the Vineyard is a wooden beam with a chain wrapped
around it. Jackie told us that at the end of the season, the guides
would have to carry the boats for two miles out of the Pass of El Ghor
and Silliman Avenue. They hoisted the boats up to hang from the beams in
case a flood struck the underground rivers. To make the job slightly
easier, they sectioned the boats in half. Still, what a load to carry!
David Kem reminded us that the boats live on at Lost River Cave in
Bowling Green, where they are named
Echo of Lost River 1 and
2.
In
the Pass of El Ghor we saw the Black Hole of Calcutta, named for the
brutal prison that held British soldiers in India during the Seven
Years' War. Near the top of the passageway here were signatures from
Pete Hanson and the Young-Hunt expedition from having crawled into a
passageway and finding their way up. Jackie also pointed out yellow
handwriting on the walls which were from the 1936 survey of the cave,
known as the Walker Survey. This was the same group that put the USGS
medallions throughout the cave. They stamped the medallions before
bringing them into the cave, and recorded elevation in a register rather
than on the medallions themselves. We also passed a formation known as
Queen Victoria's Crown.
 |
| Ole Bull (1810-1880), the famous Norwegian violinist. |
Entering into Ole Bull's
Concert Hall, Chuck told us about the famous violinist, Ole Bull, who
visited the cave in 1845. Stephen Bishop guided him through the cave.
Upon reaching this spot, Bull began to play and the melody filled the
cave. Stephen Bishop then named that room in Bull's honor. After Ole
Bull's Concert Hall, the passage changes names from El Ghor to Silliman
Avenue.
Silliman Avenue was named for Benjamin Silliman
(1779-1864), a chemistry professor at Yale and the first man to
distill petroleum. [Note: The elder Benjamin Silliman also had a son
named Benjamin Silliman, who studied caves in Pennsylvania. He might be
the one it was named for, I need to double-check].
Not far after
entering Silliman Avenue we came across the Stern of the Great Western.
According to the editors of Wikipedia,
Great Western was a
transatlantic ship. It crossed the Atlantic from England to the States
at least forty-five times in eight years. Sadly, "in 1847 she was sold
to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and used on the West Indies run.
Later, after serving as a troopship in the Crimean War, in 1856 she was
broken up at Castles' Yard, Millbank on the Thames."
The Great Western, not in a cave.
Along
the way, Chuck and Jackie pointed out how to get to Rhoda's Arcade and
the Jesup domes--named by Max Kämper for Lucy, Olivia, and Julia Jesup.
Julia's Dome connects with Specimen Avenue or Roger's Dome. Just
another example of how this cave is full of so many interconnecting
passages. It really is like a bowl of spaghetti, weaving in and out and
over each other.
 |
| Lantern in the Pass of El Ghor. Thanks to David Kem for this shot. |
Eventually we neared closer and closer
to the rivers. All along this route, volunteers from the National
Speleological Society have been breaking up a cement block at the river
and then transporting the rocks. They'll also remove a lot of the
transformers. Transformer #12 has a bit of history as it shows the 1984
flood. This is the same flood that filled up River Hall to the yellow
line.
Looking up, we saw Pluto's Dome and on the left
hand side of the cave was the Bleeding Heart Spring or Dripping Spring.
They let us know that we are almost to Cascade Hall, where water
freely flows downward on its epic journey below. Jackie pointed out
that Cascade Hall leads to Stephenson Avenue, named for the visitor
from Georgetown, Kentucky, who crossed the Bottomless Pit with Stephen
Bishop. Jackie pointed out our location in relation to anything else in
the cave, and we were around the Cataracts on the Violet City Lantern
Tour.
On our way down to Echo River, we discussed the
Hunt-Hanson expedition in 1938. They discovered the New Discovery in
crossing the Echo to the Roaring River. Some people say that with the
end of the manned space program that we don't have new frontiers to
conquer, but having learned more and more about this place, I have to
disagree. Going towards Roaring River, we passed by several cave
crawfish and eyeless fish, much to the delight of those who had not
seen them before. They were much smaller than I remember them being.
At
last, we reached Echo River. We crossed a bridge and railing that the
1972 expedition saw from a passage in the water known as Hanson's Lost
River. They came out of the Flint Ridge system and one member saw the
railing. Seeing that railing confirmed that the Flint Ridge and Mammoth
Cave systems were connected to make this the longest cave in the
world. Some took turns shouting things downriver to hear the
reverberations along the walls. We saw a sculpin and another cave
crawfish, as well as a cave cricket walking on water like a water
skimmer. Chuck pointed out the stairs down to Echo River and showed us
some photographs of early tours on the Echo River, such as this:
Echo River boat tour, 1915
The
boat tour might last 40-45 minutes if the water was at a good level.
Chuck showed us the difference in water level with the addition of a dam
in the cave. [I have something about the Echo Chamber but I don't
recollect what that is.]
It's hard to describe the feeling
of being in the same place as someone else, knowing exactly where they
were and when. Looking at the photographs, matching the landmark
rocks, piecing the clues together, brought me personally so much closer
to this amazing place. The names--the hundreds of names--that we
passed on the journey here were just more evidence of how small we
really are. Thousands of people have come before us to Mammoth Cave,
each seeking something from the cave. Maybe they were just curious
about the natural formations, or maybe they just wanted a cool place to
visit as a respite from the heat. But maybe this cave meant something
more to them.
Horace
Carter Hovey describes the ringing of the bells in his 1909 handbook,
the "Practical Guide" to Mammoth Cave's tour routes.
One
of the highlights of being at Echo River (which Stephen Bishop
initially called River Jordan) was the "ringing of the bells." Chuck and
Jackie knelt down on either side of the small peninsular bank at
river's edge and waved their hands back and forth through the
crystal-clear water for several seconds, maybe half a minute. We turned
off our headlamps, sat in the absolute darkness, and listened for
several minutes as the waves and ripples entered small archways and
cavities along the walls, to give distinct sounds not unlike ringing
bells. The ripples traveled up and down the river, causing short, quick,
high notes, and longer, deeper notes as the water
glub-glubbed
down the walls. I don't know about the others, but I couldn't wipe the
smile off of my face as if I were hearing sound for the first time. The
novelty of something as simple as water striking the cave walls blew
my mind.
While we were in the dark stillness, Chuck
asked for volunteers to sing. No one immediately took him up on the
offer, but soon Joe Brown, our resident bluegrass musician, began to
belt out a song in French, as well as "Proud Mary," and "O, Death" from
O Brother, Where Art Thou? Thomas joined in near the end with
a hymn of some sorts. Celia tried to shore up the female voices with a
Catholic school song meant to be sung in a round, but no one knew it
aside from her. Such are the products of public schools.
Before
we left Echo River, Chuck discussed how the tours worked and the story
of an infamous incident that could have led to a disaster. John Nelson
was guiding a tour in the 1920s, and they reached a part of the tour
where they had to push on the ceiling in order to get the boat down far
enough to move around. Evidently they pushed too far and the boat
started to sink. Lanterns went out except for Nelson's. Aware of the
disaster at hand, Nelson lifted his lantern above water level, but was
mobbed by his passengers trying to get a hold of him. A Senator spoke
up that they had to un-handle their guide and follow his instructions
if they wanted to survive. Nelson took the chain of the boat and
dragged it back to where they were supposed to have come back. The
incident lived with him forever, the boat's chain having crushed his
hand as he rescued the stranded tourists.
On our return
trip, we passed Welcome Avenue, where Jackie told us about how it
eventually connects back to the Wooden Bowl Room, if you're willing do
walk bent over for quite a while. Chuck estimated that at a good clip,
one might be able to make it in an hour-and-a-half. It's two miles of
passageways, though. Still, connecting to Ganter Avenue to the Wooden
Bowl Room (similar to where Trog enters/exits) might be important in
case the river was flooded.
Rather than completely
doubling back, we detoured at the Valley Wayside Cut. Chuck noted that
Keven Neff had told him that they used to store boats up there. As we
walked over more breakdown, including gypsum, Thomas, Amanda, and I
called it "teeter-totter avenue" since one person would step on the far
end of the rock as the next person stepped on the near end, pushing
the other one up or down.
 |
| A similar RC Cola can as what can be found in the Pass of El Ghor. |
The number of smoke signatures
was incredible. So many people left their names and dates on the wall.
[In 1847, one Philadelphia, Mississippi, resident, J.B.P. Poole, who I
will have to investigate back in the Magnolia State, left his mark in
several places.] On the one hand it is incredibly overwhelming, the
sheer number. On the other, it almost hurts to see the damage to the
cave. These people probably didn't think about it as ecologically
damaging. They had just written their names in a big old cave and
wanted people to know they had been there. Their trash told us they had
been there--a torn page of the Tennesseean American, which I estimated
to be from the 1920s [note: further research shows it to be from
1910-11], was spread on a rock. Historic trash was everywhere in the
cave--from chicken bones and wine bottles, to a number of Royal Crown
Cola cans.
One
of the highlights of this passageway was the board laid across two
rocks that was the dedicated latrine area, which had a bucket of lime
and alcohol bottles to aid in the smell and decomposition of matter. Of
course, eventually those buckets had to be emptied--I wonder who did
that?
We slid down the Valley Wayside Cut at the end into
Silleman and eventually El Ghor. The cave always looks different when
you're going the opposite way. Had Chuck not been there, I'm not sure I
would have been completely confident on which way was out. The walk
back was a lot of fun as I got to learn more about the cave and about
the man himself. We made it back to the Snowball Room no problem,
waited for a restroom break, and then walked to the Elevator. This was
an exciting trip in itself because in training we were instructed that
it was verboten for people to use the Elevator. Some rules were meant
to be broken, I suppose, so we wouldn't have to walk another mile and
climb 180 stairs out Carmichael. Chuck showed us the way up the
elevator shaft, which was also cool. It took almost exactly a minute to
reach the surface. When we did, the elevator gave a few rumbles and
opened the door. I pushed the button to open the garage door, and we
became the first ones out of the cave around 12:30 a.m. The worst part
was that it was over.
We piled into the two trucks, loaded
front and back, Chuck barely hanging on to Thomas as Ethan sped down
the road. The night sky opened up above the trees and the stars shone
down on us. I mentioned that if they ever made a movie about my life,
this would definitely be a part of it. Jackie noted that if there were a
movie made, this scene would show a shooting star. Of course it
would!
We made it back to the Carmichael Entrance and
disembarked from the trucks, piling back into the carpool vehicles. To
be sure to "cleanse our souls" and help save the bat population, we
pulled into the bus loop at the Visitor Center and walked across the
White Nose Syndrome mats before dropping our helmets and headlamps at
the Guide Lounge and thanking Chuck and Jackie on an excellent trip.
Upon
getting back to Seasonal Quarters, I immediately began to try piecing
together the trip. I promised Chuck to transcribe my notes for his
report and in doing so I had to look up a few things here and there,
including in Hovey's writings, for a few details I had not written
down. As I skimmed through the Echo River section, I came across a few
brief sentences which I think can sum up my impression of this truly
amazing section of cave:
"The
aquatic excursion was more to our taste than any thing we had seen,
and never can the impression it made be obliterated from our memories."
This
is why Mammoth Cave matters. Different people visiting the same
section of cave with more than a hundred years separating their
experiences can share the same sense of awe, wonder, mystery, sublime,
fascination, and appreciation of this hauntingly beautiful cavern. As
far as I'm concerned, tonight will go down as one of those memories I
cherish forever. It's right up there with seeing the sunset reveal
unheard-of colors of Grand Canyon, feeling the gusts of wind rising
over the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers at Harpers
Ferry, or feeling goosebumps as modern-day 101st Airborne members
escorted the Little Rock Nine to a program honoring their quiet courage
in the face of absolute hatred. I've been fortunate enough to work in
six national parks. Mammoth Cave National Park tops them all.
