CAVING IN AGAIN--Trip 2

"If you were to take a second tour," Andy asked Ranger Bobby at the Visitor Center, "which other one would you recommend?"
"Oh, the Historic Tour, hands down," he answered immediately." So the Historic Tour it was.
Ranger Richard led the way down the hill to the Historic Entrance, with Ranger Barbara acting as sweeper. He warned the 50 or so tourists that the two hours would be a moderately strenuous two miles with more than 500 stairs and a descent to Level 5 of Mammoth Cave. "Level 6 is the Green River today," he explained. "Seven tributaries still flow into the Green River."
The history lesson came to life as we descended. "Early slave guides carried candles and grease lanterns," said Ranger Richard. "They couldn't afford whale oil, and they needed money to buy their freedom, so they used any kind of grease that would burn, like bacon grease." That explained all the black soot on the wall.
It also explained the graffiti--names, dates, initials. Private tours started in 1816, with Mammoth second only to Niagara Falls as a tourist attraction, and the most famous guide was Stephen Bishop. But it wasn't a federal offense to write on the walls until Mammoth became a national park on July 1, 1941. Ranger Richard said that now the cave welcomes 400,000 visitors a year. "But in my 20 years of giving tours as a Ranger, I have never seen anyone even try to put a name anywhere on the cave wall," he said. "Maybe it is the threat of federal offense." We all chuckled. Names were everywhere in this section of Mammoth Cave. "You won't see any here before 1839 though," said Ranger Richard, after we crossed Bottomless Pit. "That was the year Stephen Bishop had been hired to show a wealthy American 'a place no man has ever set foot before.'" Ranger Richard explained, "Bishop went back outside and cut a tree down, carried it in and placed it over Bottomless Pit. Then he shimmied across, carrying the lantern in his teeth, and the wealthy man followed." Today we know Bottomless Pit, named by Bishop, is actually about 150 feet deep.

Our first major stop was the salt petre mine, operated from 1812 to 1815 by African American slaves. With our tour group gathered around him, Ranger Richard described the mining business. "With the onset of the War of 1812, the British blockaded the eastern port cities. At that time we imported all our black gun powder. Caves like Mammoth offered a source to extract nitrates from the soil, from which black gun powder could be made."

He pointed out the tulip poplar logs, the state tree of Kentucky, that brought in water for the sluice pens and carried out the salt petre foam. "When the price of gun powder jumped from 10 cents a pound to more than a dollar, if it could be smuggled into the country at all, Americans used their ingenuity, and this was the result, completely preserved in the stable 54-degree atmosphere of the cave," said Ranger Richard. "We are told that 400,000 pounds of nitrates were extracted from Mammoth alone. The owners made a lot of money, but business was short-lived with the end of the war."

A tiny bat clung to the wall near our next stop. "Won't the lights bother him?" asked one of the tourists in our group.

"Probably," said Ranger Richard, "but that's why we turn the lights off after we pass. It's unusual to see a bat here. Bats don't usually sleep in this part of Mammoth Cave."

Our next stop was Fat Man's Misery, a scalloped single file stretch named the Winding Way by Stephen Bishop, where we ducked and twisted and waddled one by one for a couple hundred feet. Some tourists puffed and groaned when we sat for a few moments at the underground rest stop. Little did they realize the trek that lay ahead. Here, Ranger Richard told about the role of the Civilian Conservation Corps when a lady asked about the cave pathways. "Twelve miles of Mammoth paths were created by the 600 teenage boys in the CCC who were sent here," said Ranger Richard. After they cleared houses, covered wells and planted trees outside, then they beat boulders into gravel and brought in dirt to pack the trails inside the cave."

We listened, amazed at the history.

"Do you know what they were paid?" asked Ranger Richard. "One dollar a day. That's how we got the expression 'another day, another dollar,'" he explained. "They were all teenage boys, given housing and clothing and a dollar a day--better pay than they received as drafted soldiers in World War II at $22.00 a month. The CCC boys kept $9.00 and sent the rest home to their families."
Our final stop, Mammoth Dome, 192 feet from bottom to top, was just before the climb back out. From the fourth level down at Sparks Avenue we ascended 155 steps to the exit on the second level at Little Bat Avenue, a metal tower of stainless steel stairs installed three years ago.

Ranger Richard said good-bye and sent us on our way across the Lysol squish foam kill-the-fungus-to-protect-the-bats pad. It had been an incredible journey into history.
The Good Spring Baptist Church, founded by 15 people in 1842, served as a cornerstone of rural life in the community. Stone markers in the adjoining cemetery showed that many died young by today's standards. Cholera, tuberculosis and influenza often brought death.
The Green River Ferry carried Little Red across the Green River and back. One of two ferries still in operation on the river, the cable flat boat shuttles vehicles from 8 a.m. to 9:55 p.m. "I don't think it can carry more than three cars at a time," said Andy. It seemed rather loaded with two cars, and one of them was "Little."
Sloan's Crossing Pond, a .4-mile boardwalk, skirted a depression in the sandstone cap rock. Cattails and water lilies lined the edges and covered the surface, and dry leaves crunched as we walked the boardwalk. "Some of these could be poison ivy," I said.
"Could," Andy agreed. "There's plenty of it here, but most is below the level of the boardwalk. Mild climate and more humid than up north, so it grows easily and once it gets established, well..."
In the early afternoon we set out on a major walk. "It really IS a pretty day now," said Andy. In between two weather fronts, Mammoth had blue skies, intermittent sun and billowy cumulus clouds.
I followed Andy on the trail, up and down sinks, around ridges and down to the Green River. We passed the opening to Dixon Cave, the winter home of hibernating Indiana bats at 44 degrees F. With a crack behind us in the trees, we jumped and turned. It was followed by a thud. "That was a first," said Andy. A squirrel had tumbled from 30 feet up, hit the ground, shook his head and run away.
Andy's planned three-mile walk took us from Dixon Cove Trail to Green River Trail to Echo River Spring Cut Off to Mammoth Dome Sink Trail and back to the Visitor Center.
"Let's check with a ranger to see if we can identify the snakes," suggested Andy.
Using my photos, the ranger determined both snakes were harmless. The first, a three-foot brown rat snake, slithered across the path ahead of us. A couple minutes later, Andy unknowingly stepped on the pencil-thin green snake. "I don't remember what that one is called," said the ranger, "but it's harmless."

"He put on a good show for me," I said. "He didn't like being stepped on. He unhooked his jaw and opened his fangs, a real tough guy."

We drove Green River Road again, crossing the river via ferry at Houchins Ferry. "This guy can't get much business," Andy joked. The approach was five miles of gravel road, but we still passed three or four vehicles on the way to the river. The sign said, "Road ends in water." Two locals passed us at high speeds on the gravel. Coated with dust, Little Red was a powdery mess.
We stopped at the Wildcat Car Wash to remedy the situation before heading toward town and dinner.