January 15, 2020 • 50 mins
When most people think of Kentucky, they might think of bourbon, horse races, fried chicken... all fitting, but what about the largest cave system in the world? Mammoth Cave National Park is not only the longest cave on Earth (or in Earth), but it is fascinating to learn about all the weird and wild ways this cave has been used over the years, from burial site to gunpowder manufacturing, to whiskey distillery, to church, to hospital...and more. This episode, we explore this bustling park, both below- and above-ground!
Follow Parklandia on Instagram at @parklandiapod, join the Parklandia Rangers Facebook Group and Like our Facebook page!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
When most people think of Kentucky, what do they think
of Bourbon Horse Races KFC? All true, all fitting, But
how about the largest cave system in the world. Even
crazier is the history behind Mammoth Cave National Park, which
is not only the longest cave on Earth by a
long shot, but all the weird and wild different ways
(00:20):
the cave has been used over the years. Yes, weird
and wild is definitely an accurate description, and I can't
wait to explore all of it in this week's episode
on This Kentucky Park. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad.
This is part Glandia production of I Heart Radio. We
packed up are loft in Chicago, moved into an r V,
(00:40):
and now we're traveling in the country exploring America's national
parks with our dog Finn. Today's episode is about Mammoth
Cave National Park in southern Kentucky. History. Now, the first
thing I want to talk about are these impressive stats.
Mammoth Cave consists of more than four hundred miles of
(01:01):
mapped cave, making it the longest cave in the world,
and it blows the competition straight out of the water. Yeah,
I mean, I I don't want to turn this thing
into like a competition or anything, but that's exactly what
I'm going to do. The second longest cave in the world,
it's systema sac Actomb in Mexico, and it's nearly half
the sizes of Mammoth Cave. Granted, still a two hundred
(01:22):
something mile cave. It's nothing to sneeze app but it's
no Mammoth Cave. And even more impressive is the fact
that theogy geologists are discovering and mapping more miles there
every single year. Um, they're estimating that there could be
as much as six hundred more miles yet to be discovered.
That's crazy that I'm overwhelmed just thinking about that, Like
where does it end? Is the whole world just sitting
(01:44):
above Mammoth Cave? Like is it under us right now?
I'm kind of kind of unnerved something. Um, this huge
takes a long time to explore, no doubt about that.
But it all started a few thousand years ago and
Native Americans in Kentucky discovered the area and they started
to explore the cave and in a search for like minerals, right,
(02:06):
so they were initially on the hunt for things like
gypsum and mara apolite. And we know they maintained some
presence here for at least a couple of thousand years
because of the artifacts and petroglyphs they left behind, including
some primative class and things like utensils. You know what
the else they left behind, what their own skeletons. Don't
don't do it. I'm going to remain calm right now,
(02:28):
but inside I'm screaming. Yeah, due to the fact that
the cave is like this um they maintain a consistent
level of temperature about fifty four degrees and the constant humidity.
It's like this prime environment preserving human bones and mummies.
I mean, is this like a park Landy episode or
(02:49):
an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Because
I am afraid of the dark and I'm afraid of skeletons,
and this is terrifying. But after some two thousand years
of occupation an exploration, most Native Americans abandoned the caves.
And I mean, I get it, I would too if
they were like literal mummies, student all over the place
and pinned under rocks like something out of a nightmare. Yeah.
(03:11):
And another interesting mystery is that no one really knows
what they were using these minerals for and why they
were clearly so important for such a long time. Yeah,
something tells me they weren't using the minerals to make
moot rings or anything like that, especially since I assumed
the primary mood would just be constant fear, probably like
a visceral primal terror at all times. But that's just me. Yeah. Enough,
(03:36):
the cave just sat pretty much empty and unexplored for
a couple of millennia before it was even discovered again
by a hunter, John hutchins Um. As the story goes,
he had had shot and injured a black bear and
then led him into the cave's entrance. Yeah. I definitely
don't approve of the bear hunting, but otherwise that that
really is a fascinating story. It's like a violent fairy
(03:57):
tale or something. I just love how with cave in
general has so much like mythical, scary miss like mysterious
history attached to it. It's really kind of incredible. Yew
Then things really start to get even weirder and wilder.
Humans started to use the caves for all different purposes. Yeah,
they really did. Emth cave actually played a role in
(04:19):
the War of eighteen twelve. Shockingly enough, when British troops
cut off gunpowder supplies in the East, Americans retreated to
the huge cave to mind calcium nitrate and create their
own gunpowder. And since there's basically a limitless supply of
that stuff here, it enabled the American army to significantly
increase their arms in the war, which is wild. I mean,
(04:40):
the manth Cave like played a role in the War
of eighteen twelve. Yeah, that's just absolutely insane. Guess what
else people usually cave for. Well, if I didn't actually
know the answer to that, I would say something like
mummy museum or like subterranean Bourbon distillery. But I do
know the answer to that, so I'm just going to
point out that Mammoth Cave has been used as a
(05:01):
church and even as a tuberculosis treatment center. Again wild, weird,
what the hell? Because can you imagine going to like
a church in a cave, or like getting medical treatment here, like, oh,
I'm gonna go like get my shots, get my flu
shots and Mammoth Cave. Yeah, but thenk goodness, Like, unsurprisingly,
neither of these things lasted very long here, right, which
(05:23):
makes sense? Because they're both absolutely crazy. Use this for
a four hundred mile long cave. Yeah. Ultimately, though, something
that did catch on um and stick was tourism for
various reasons. Over the years, the public was hearing more
and more about this enormous cave system, and curiosity was building.
Cave tours started in eighteen sixteen, and they've stunningly been
(05:44):
occurring over and over again ever since, even through the
Civil War yep, priorities apparently so, even though the fate
of the country was dangling by a thread, people are
still interested in touring Mammoth Cave, which I fully understand.
It's an alluring under on the world. Yeah. It's also
the same time that, like early cave tour guides like
Stephen Bishop explored and named different portions of the cave
(06:07):
like the Mammoth Dome and Goren's Dome. He even described
the cave as a grand, gloomy and peculiar place. Yeah,
which is a perfect description and pretty on the nose.
And then Stephen's great nephew, at Bishop, who kind of
continued the family legacy, he joined up with a man
named Max Camper to formally map out more parts of
(06:28):
the cave. Discovering and naming things like Violet City and
Elizabeth's Dome, both of which sound kind of lovely, absolutely
and so beautiful. I mean clear tourism was like ramping
up quickly, and by ny the cave had several thousand
annual visitors flocking from near and far. I mean, it's
just such an amazing thing to think, because caves this
(06:52):
big just didn't exist. So it became such a tourism
magnet that money hungry locals wanted to get in on
the action and find their own new sections of the
cave to monetize it. Yeah, which sadly is not surprising
that people were doing this then and chopping at the
bit to turn Mammoth Cave into a cash grab. I
(07:12):
mean that's America. Yeah, so here we are. And then
you have people like George Morrison at the time, who
used dynamite to blow out what he what he called
the new entrance, or this poor fellow named Floyd Collins
who got himself stuck while exploring a portion of cave
and end up dying down there after seventeen days, which
is horrific. What a nightmare. It's like an are you
(07:33):
fraid of the dark? Story that just never ends. Fortunately,
all this greed and tourism and the death is what
urged the federal government to protect the cave and make
it a national park, not only to protect the land,
but to protect these like swarms of people who have
been recklessly exploring and putting themselves at risk and endanger
like and possibly ruining the cave. Yeah, ruining the cave,
(07:54):
ruining I mean your your life apparent, like Floyd Collins
getting himself stuck. That's crazy. It reminds me of that movie,
Um James Franco movie, What was it right or whenever?
We had So it's like that, except Floyd didn't survive.
But thank god someone eventually intervened because we don't want
m Cave turning into a four hundred miles sarcophagus. Yikes.
(08:17):
This led Mammoth Cave officially becoming a National park in
nineteen UM. At that time, there were only like forty
none miles in the cave, give or take, and so
that just goes to show you the incredible work and
safe discovery that can occur when it's in the right hand. Absolutely,
geologists were able to discover that there were actually several
(08:38):
cave systems that wind up all being connected and when
they're all pieced together, that's how we got the hundreds
of known miles that we have today. And even though
the miles are seemingly endless, there are really only fourteen
of them that are accessible for tours today. But that's
the reality. For the best, um, and for the worst.
The safety of the visitors, that's what's the most important.
(08:58):
You don't want to end up as like skeletons down there. No, No,
that's not what this place should be. And I'm going
to go scream into a pillow. Now, Mammoth Cave holds
(09:19):
a very special place in our nomadic hearts. Um. It's
actually the very first national park we visited when we
got an RV. Yeah, that's very true. Before this, my
heart really wasn't a nomadic heart, but I think Mammoth
Cave kind of triggered that. And this was our first
foray into the RV lifestyle and like nomadic living and
(09:40):
all that. So it was our very first RV trip
in general. We had freshly purchased our r V in Indiana.
It was August. We were down there for a weekend
and then wrote it down to Mammoth Cave to kind
of christen it and make it all feel official, And
what better way to do that than by going to
a national park. Yeah, I mean it was just a
(10:01):
fantastic little journey driving down there. In the first place
we had to pick was a k away. I mean
they just like we love them, um so near Uh,
it was right near Natmam the Cave, and we stayed
there for a couple of days because we knew it
would be easy to visit the park and then of
course some other things like bourbon distilleries. Yeah, so that
that was a priority. We wanted to be close to
(10:23):
a national park and also just kind of surrounded by Bourbon.
And it worked out really well and that was a
great weekend. They're both perfect. We also went kind of
mistakenly to a Kentucky winery. Can we not get into them? Yeah,
this is Kentucky is great at bourbon and those are
totally worthwhile and there's so many wonderful distilleries. But this
(10:46):
is not Napa Valley by any means, so let's skim
right by that. Yeah. So we stated at this like
amazing k Away. Um. They had a great mini golf
course and one of those giant little bouncy pillows, Like
it's basically like an inflated like trampoline. That what it is.
It's like a huge, gigantic earth marshmallow or something, and
they're probably meant for kids, but I totally got into
(11:10):
it and I had a blast, Like he took photos
of me, and I don't I've never been that happy,
like as an adult. I was just bouncing up and down,
getting some serious like elevation or whatever you call that
when you're bouncing. I just really love that you called
it an earth marshmallow. Marshmallows, that's the technical term for
these things. Yeah, we'll go with that. Um. So that
(11:31):
was that was a great time. And then right next
to that was a basketball court where we I think
we got basketballs from the camp, like the store or
something that they let us borrow, and then we played
horse horse I love it. So we got really sporty,
like a lot sportier then we usually do, which is
usually Yeah. I mean, it was really fun and it
(11:53):
was the first weekends thing in the RV, so it
was really special, and we had Fan with us, of course,
and he got comfortable in it real quick, which was
a huge relief. Honestly, Yeah, he got comfy and cozy
shockingly fast, and he did really well. I was like
super nervous. This was probably one of my biggest like
anxieties going into it. Was just worrying about Finn and
how like potentially anxious and scared and square me he
(12:14):
would be because like when we were in the loft
in Chicago, wh would do that frequently, Like even when
it started to drizzle rain outside, he would freak out.
So going into the r V, I'm like, he's going
to be like constant meltdowns, and then I would it
would just reflect on me, just like his father, which
would definitely annoy you. Yeah right, so we're the same
and you would be dealing with both of us too,
(12:34):
neurotic messes next to you. But he calmed down really
quick and then it was much better for both of us.
Although honestly, I was still kind of freaking out from
buying the r V and I'm still freaking out a
little bit like a year and a half later, So yeah,
I mean, it really did happen fast. You know, one
week we're talking about buying an r V and selling
or loft in Chicago. The next thing you know, I'm
(12:55):
calling Matt telling him the house we owe for a
don deposit, and you know, it's just one of those
crazy times where it's just a whirlwind and I just
we're kind of like compulsive, so we just jump into
things and we just dive into it and we do it.
And this was one of those cases where it was
like the biggest compulsive thing that we've ever done together
(13:17):
or yeah, by far, yeah, because I guess I am
kind of compulsive, but I do freak out about it.
Obviously that it did work out for the best, and
the fact that we're able to celebrate this huge new
chapter together by visiting a national park made it all
much easier. Yeah, and we'll definitely talk more in depth
about our r V experience later in the episode, but
(13:37):
I think we need to explore the cave. Oh yeah,
of course cave. So obviously cave towards are the thing
to do here, and we made sure to book our
tour reservations online in advance, which costs a small fee, nothing,
nothing major, and highly recommend that you do this in advance,
(14:01):
especially in the summer months like when we went, because
it was quite crowded. There was long lines, in the
visitor center to either purchase tickets or pick up tickets
that you had reserved in advance. I'm definitely glad we did,
because like, yeah, it was definitely at capacity. I mean
it was a pretty long line in the visitor center,
just a kid tickets, and they were like, if you're
(14:21):
for the eleven thirty um am showing of the this
cave tour, step up front and then you have to
like wiggle your way through because we were getting so
close to the time that we had to jump on
the bus to go over there. I just remember it
was like really intense. It was yeah, much more sun
than I thought it would be. I was a little stressed,
and I was afraid that like we might wind up
in the wrong line or like go towards the wrong
(14:43):
bus or something, because there was a lot of like
moving parts here, and I'm like, I don't know, yeah,
And it was like again one of our first uh
not our first national park together, but like this first
whole experience and you're your normal ability to like problems
is kind of shocked when you're first getting into our
V lifestyle because at least for us, because we never
(15:07):
camped in an RV and did it like you've you
did it like a family trip. Yeah, I was like twelve,
but that doesn't really count because you didn't do anything
in there and like to like help put up or anything.
So it's just a whole new experience and we're just
often always running behind. But it was a fun time. Yeah,
all these adjustments and crammed into this like one like
(15:27):
inaugural weekend, but it all, it was all great. Man
with the cave was a lot of fun. So the
tour that we did was the Domes and Dripstones Tour, which,
as you might expect, is filled with domes and dripstones
spoiler alert. And as with most cave formations here, they're
made by water slowly trickling in from the surface and
mixing with carbon dioxide. The latter has the ability to
(15:48):
dissolve limestone, and over time, like lots of time, thousands
and thousands of years, they create these lavish looking cave
structures like gnarly stalagmites and stalactites that seeming need dango
from the cave ceiling. Sometimes salactites come in such clusters
that they resemble frozen waterfalls, like with the popular formation
here called frozen Niagara, which I love. Oh yeah, And
(16:10):
for the Domes and Gripstone tour. We boarded the green
colored school bus to get there from the visitor center,
driving along some small roads into the woods where the
tour begins through a door that looks like it just
disappears into the forest. And the thing I loved about
this is just like it was dreaming it was or
it could have been terrifying, you know, it could be
the beginning of a are you afraid of the dark?
(16:33):
Sorry spoiler. They do turn off all the lights in
the caves. Yeah, so it gets dark, and I was
a little afraid. But that was that was great. I
like that we did the tour where like we all
boarded at this bus and I had this like communal
experience in a sense. And I haven't been on a
school bus and I don't know, it's like seventeen no
bussing now because I was driving in so it's been
(16:56):
a long time. And it was it was fun. It
was like this kind of a stalgic vibe happening as
we're winding our way up towards the start of the
tour and adding to the kind of mysticism of all
of this whole experience was it was rainy and kind
of a gloomy dre every day, but I think it
added to it. In the forest that we had to
walk through a little bit to get to the entryway
(17:18):
was like super thick, superlash and green. So walking through
it to get to the door was just stunning in
and of itself. I could have explored that section and
like not even gone underground, or would have been like,
this is great, um, but there's this door that is
kind of in the middle of the woods, seemingly like
it kind of emerges out of nowhere, and you all
(17:40):
go single file into this door and then down a
step of steep stairs, So heads up. Not ideal for
people with a fear of enclosed spaces, heights, or darkness,
just all of the fears, all of the fears. The
tricky thing with a group tour of the size is
that the guide is way in front of you usually,
so you have to follow through a long, narrow line
(18:01):
before meeting up to regroup and learn more about the cave.
Once you can all see the guide and you know
the guide's telling you things while you're walking right and
you're missing them because you're in the back and it's like, man,
you really need to try to get up to that front.
But we're more of like the back settlers, like you
like to allow everyone else. We like people watching, so
we do. And you're like talking a little bit with
(18:22):
some people in front of you or behind you, making
friends in the cave. And you know, the thing about this,
like the good thing is the guide will meet up
with you over and over again. It happens several times,
especially during this tour, so you don't miss too much
and he will go over things that he was telling
on the way. But um, yeah, they're close. Bear in mind. Yeah,
if you're the type of person who wants constant, like
(18:45):
little ty bits of information and just maybe the comfort
of being close to a guide or whatever, you might
want to like make sure that you're towards the front,
you know, or just back to that in It was
fun though, and we could be like in these massive
amphitheater like spaces periodically where the guide would point out
different formations and the thousands of years it took for
(19:07):
water to create it drip by drip by drip by drip.
There are some fun and cute formations that he pointed
out to like something on the cave ceilings that he
said resembles an upside down dollhouse. Yeah. I like that,
although like that's not something I would have envisioned myself
if he didn't point that out, because it's so specific, Like, oh,
(19:28):
sure that does look like an upside down dollhouse glued
to the ceiling, But now it's like burned into my
memory and it's one of my favorite things that we
saw there. It's cute. And another super cruel aspect of
Mammoth Cave are the underground waterways, something we've never seen
before in a cave, or something I didn't even realize
was actually like a real thing. I've seen like little
(19:50):
kind of mini cave pools in other caves like Carl's
Bad caverns, but not like actual waterways. But at Mammoth
Cave there are sections here are called things like the
Dead Sea and the River Sticks, both fittingly ominous, which
run alongside some motionless waterways. They're so still and dark
that you almost don't even notice their water. And another
(20:10):
surprising fact is that these waterways are actually home to animals,
specifically shrimp Kentucky Cave shrimp crazy who. Yeah, these definitely
aren't the kind of shrimp that you're used to seeing though.
Um their albino and iiilis and they only live in
the deepest regions of the cave, right, so you're not
going to see these in a shrimp cocktail anytime soon. No,
(20:33):
And I feel like I'm actually glad we didn't see
any because they sound really creepy. I don't want to
like pass judgment and so they're like fine docile animals,
but they sound horrific and I'd rather just learn about
them and respect them from afar, like from the comforts
of Theorist surface where things aren't pitch black and early quiet. Yeah. Absolutely,
(20:53):
And a really cool fun fact about them is, like
the reason the hilist is because they live in a cave,
don't need that. If they don't need their like it's
always so that's how they adapted, like adapted to their surroundings.
But back on the tour, the domes and dripstones take
about like two hours and set aside from the narrow
like dimly lit steps, it's pretty easy to do. But
(21:13):
if you're looking for something even easier and less intimidating,
try the Frozen Niagara Tour, which is a little over
an hour, and it's just like a less deep underground right, Yeah,
that one. That one was much um, easier and more
straightforward and takes you to one of these most iconic
sites or cave formations in the park. Or if you're
looking to go in the opposite direction and amp up
(21:35):
your adrenaline, the Wild Cave Tour could be for you.
It sounds terrifying to me, but I'm also a little
intrigued since it requires some serious sper lunking over the
course of six hours. Jesus, it's pretty hardcore and it's
very hands on. Um. There are lots of dark, tight
spaces to squeeze through. It's worth noting that all participants
(21:56):
must be sixteen years old and meet a size your arm.
You know, you can actually like make sure you can
fit through the tiny spaces like in the beginning, like
like box demonstration box, to make sure you can do it, yeah,
because you don't want to be down in the cave
and be like, oh j K, I can't fit. Yeah,
(22:17):
And even even like knowing that I could fit, I
think I would still be horrified. So I'm not sure
if I could pull the trigger in this and actually
do something like the Wild Cave Tour. But I did
actually go sparlunking in a cave in Barbadoes not too
long ago, so I know I could do it. Granted,
like the spurlocking thing was kind of sprung on me.
I didn't know like the cave tour I did in
Barbados included that, So that was a bit of a surprise,
(22:41):
unsettling surprise when suddenly I was doing that. Um And
also that tour wasn't six hours long, so it's a
little more doable. That would be like a really epic
adventure though. It what I think it would be fun
to do, like a National Park buckalist experience at Ma
of the Cave at the at the world's largest cave.
(23:02):
You are listening to park Landia from my Heart Radio. Hi,
(23:30):
I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. In
today's episode is on Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky,
where we're talking more about cave tours that you can
do here. Most cave tours at Mammoth Cave actually started
out the old fashioned way at the historic entrance by
the visitor center. This is where the earliest Native Americans
first entered the cave, and it's where visitors still entered
(23:51):
the cave for tours of sections like Gothic Avenue, Star Chamber,
trog which sounds like a ride at Disney or something,
Violet City, and River Sticks and that's s t y
X by the way, as in the underground river from
Greek mythology, like to get to the underworld. And I
think it's perfect here, it really is, And the historic
(24:13):
entrance is a great way to experience the park, just
like the natural entrance at Carl's Bed caverns Um. It's
amazing to slowly descend beneath the Earth's surface and feel
like things are gradually getting dark around you. It's like
darker and darker. And of course they have these like
lanterns along the way to prevent you from like crashing
into things or falling into the bottomless pits. But you know,
(24:33):
it feels natural. Yeah, and it's the best way to
experience a cave for sure. But there's actually a lot
more to explore man withth cave beyond the actual cave itself,
surprisingly enough trails. Yeah, it's a little too. In fact,
that Mammoth Cave actually has about eighty miles of hiking
trails on the surface, um, all through this beautiful train
(24:54):
like forests, rolling hills and the Green River Valley. Yeah,
that's a lot of hiking trails. And I had no idea.
I know you didn't know about this, and I think
most most people don't because of the half a million
annual visitors that come to Mammoth Cave, two thirds of
them focus only on cave tours and don't do anything
on the surface whatsoever. They come here for one thing
(25:15):
and one thing only. And I think that's obviously understandable.
But you know, it feels like there's basically a whole
another park up here on the surface. It's just so
serene and beautiful. And another fun fact that was convenient
for us was it's super dog friendly. It really was
like crazy, who to thunk. I actually wrote an article
about this a few years ago, so it was like
(25:36):
fresh in my memory and we're coming here about how
Mammoth Cave is one of the most dog friendly national
parks in the country. They obviously can't go into the
cave itself, but if they're leashed, you can take them
on pretty much all the surface trails. Yeah, we went
for a little hike with Finn on the sand Cave Trail,
making Mammoth Caves finn first official national park. That was
(25:58):
a big deal, big moment for him and for huge
for us as his parents. Yeah, and it was. I
think the Sand Cave Trail was also the perfect trail
for him because it's short and easy and it's all
on this even boardwalk through this gorgeous forest filled with
tall trees and flowers and just like super chill, relaxing
(26:18):
and peaceful. We're the only ones on it when we
did it, which is great. And it ends by the
entrance to sand Cave where that poor guy for Floyd
Collins got stuck and died, so you learn a lot
more about that, and then other like sand Cave tidbits
along the way. There's signs that are well marked. So
it's great. It's very inportant. It's beautiful. I mean, it's
a national park, right, and you've got all that great
(26:40):
things with Cave is just filled with creepy and dark
history all over the place though either literally dark or
dark in other ways, like right, So it's kind of
a funny juxtposition because like we're in this forest that's
like so quiet, and calming almost like zen like, and
then all of a sudden, here's the signs, like, oh,
here's where someone died. You're like, oh, okay, the caves
(27:01):
have high sorry, um, and like it's it's kind of
nice to reminder that of that, I guess in the
history and all the people who have been here and
experienced it in different ways, some less fortunate than us,
like Floyd. But even though I was definitely happy go
lucky while taking Finn on his first National Park hike
(27:23):
and setting up the camera to post for our first
family photo by the National Park sign, it was such
a beautiful moment, and it was such a beautiful moment.
And there's just so many other hiking options as well,
I mean more on the north side of the Green River. Um.
And you can only get there with the Green River Ferry,
which drops you off at the Maple Springs Group campground
(27:44):
where a lot of trailheads are. Um. It's worth the
extra effort though, because it's the side of the park
that has a lot less visitors, so it's great for
finding more quiet and like serenity in the woods right exactly,
And unlike the River sticks underground, the Green River won't
bring you to Hades Underworld, so that's that's a plus.
That's definitely a plus. So if you're going to stick
(28:07):
to the south side of the Green River though, which
is by the visitor center, one trail that you need
to hike, I think is the River Sticks Spring Trail,
so obviously you're above ground you this whole time. It
goes right by the historic entrance, so you can see
what that looks like and snap a few pictures, which
I think you should absolutely do because it's phenomenal, and
(28:27):
then it follows the River Sticks where it exits the
cave and that eventually flows into the Green River. Altogether,
it's only about like a half mile total, which is
super easy and almost entirely flat, but it packs a
lot of cool sites into a short length. So if
you only have time for like one surface trail, I
think this is a really good option. And speaking of rivers, though,
(28:48):
another thing that most people don't realize about Mammoth Cave
is that it's the perfect park for paddling. The park
doesn't actually rent kayaks or canoes or host pladdling tours,
but there are plenty of local outfitters that you can
like get with and they'll do that with you. And
the Green River is a great easy trip for a
leisurely flowed through out this like gorgeous forest and along
(29:12):
the trees line. It's Kentucky. I mean, it is beautiful.
It's a great place. Um But all in all, like
the Green River flows through the park for about so
there's plenty of water ways to explore here. Yeah, we
need to do that. We didn't do that while we're here,
and I don't think we understood just how much opportunity
there was here for paddling, and I think a lot
(29:32):
of people don't realize that as well. But it's sounds great.
It's super intriguing. And also my favorite thing about the
Green Rivers that it's lined with a bunch of sandbars
and these kind of rocky little islands, so tons of
places along the way that you could stop and relax
and like have lunch and just kind of chill out
and dip your feet in the water. It's it sounds
(29:53):
perfectly quiet and relaxing. Swimming is not recommended though, because
the river tends to be kind of strong and super
are unpredictable, but that's that's fine. It's still like very
relaxing and scenic, and you can also go fishing if
you're into that sort of thing. You won't catch any
of those Kentucky cave shrimp, but the Green and Nolan
Rivers have plenty of catfish and perch and bath. Yeah.
(30:15):
And in terms of other wildlife beyond fish and cave shrimp,
Mammoth Cave National Park also has animals like beavers, coyotes,
bald eagles, herons, mink, and skunks, but most of which
you probably won't see. They're pretty elusive and rare. We
we didn't see like any of these, No, but there's
plenty to marvel at within this like nature filled park.
(30:35):
Um Park is located at a geographic part of the
country where the cooler North meets the warmer South. Has
a huge array of different flowers and grasses and biodiversity
in general. Yeah right, it's like the best of both
worlds or best of both you know parts of the country.
I guess this place really is just bursting with surprises.
(30:55):
Mammoth Cave like paddling surface trails, blind shrimp. There's so
much here, both beneath the ground and above it. So
much food. Now that we've explored Mammoth Cave from the
underground and the surface. Let's talk about another one of
my favorite Kentucky activities drinking bourbon. Yes, yeah, you can't
(31:19):
like not go to distilier when you're in Kentucky, especially
when you're this close to Kentucky Bourbon country. And for us,
like we love bourbon, we always have a stuff supply
of it in the RV. It's a big priority. And
I remember while we were here, we were trying to
visit a couple of the big ones, like the iconic
distilleries like Jim Beam after our cave tour. But for
(31:40):
some reason, most distilleries here have superlimited hours that end
like weirdly early afternoon, like one pm or two pm
or something, which is create like what why are people
doing distillery tours that like noon? Right? But luckily we
were able to visit Bardstown Bourbon Company and Bardstown, Kentucky.
It's one of the newer distiller is in the area,
and it was beautiful and quite modern looking, very modern looking.
(32:04):
It looks like a sleek contemporary lab or something. From
the outside and huge like in the middle of this
like big field and inside was just as beautiful. We
didn't do any distillery to or anything like that. But
we did get drinks and food at the distilleries restaurant,
which is called Bottle and Bond Kitchen and Bar appropriate.
I like it. Yeah, it was so cool. Um you
(32:26):
can see into the main distillery through the wall while
you're drinking. Um. It was literally perfect and the cocktails
were amazing. Yeah, we were really happy there. I don't
really like just sipping bourbon by itself necessarily, It's not
like my go to, so I'd much rather taste it
this way, like in a cocktail in The bartenders here
were really really good and clearly very creative. They have
(32:50):
things like barrel aged old fashions and barrel aged Manhattans
and mules with type basil and other fun things like
the Stay Gold cocktail, which has bourbon, honey, lemon, and
turmeric and Moroccan spices. And I as someone like I
obsessed with turmeric, so I'm fully and with that. They
even had like a few tiki cocktails, which is a
(33:10):
huge surprise, um, because we love our tiki drinks and
so this was perfect for us. Um. I think we
shared the Kentucky Sling, which was has this like rye whiskey, gin, pineapple,
cherry herring and benedictine served in a fun little tiki mug.
Of course, we can't say no to a good tiki drink,
especially in a bourbon distillery, which is again a very
(33:30):
pleasant surprise. It really was, I mean, you know, another
surprise was it was those like glazed Brussels sprouts with
blue cheese and chicken fried oysters, and then they had
like sweet potato oknoky. You love that, I mean I
do too. And this is like our ideal scenario which
just like sitting dining and drinking at the bar, talking
with the bartender, learning and it was just a great
(33:55):
way to wind down our day in Kentucky r V.
And now we definitely got to talk more about our
r V experience here since this was our first foray
into life on the road, a lot of learning curves,
lots of them. Um. Luckily, we're gonna have um like
an episode in the future Boon document Brad that's gonna
(34:18):
be talking about the essentials, which will be about most
of our unexpected things that we had to get on
our first trip. Um. But we definitely didn't have a
dump post, so we had to go get our dumpos.
We the homely ask. It was like the water hose,
which was an issue because like I got the wrong kind,
Like I didn't think there was a wrong kind, um,
(34:40):
but I had to learn it all to hook up,
like I the organizing it. Um. They're like leveling box
and all these different things that I didn't think about RV.
They gave you everything. They don't spoil over. I didn't
see and like this, so's how oblivious I was, Like
I'm learning all this for the first time, like right now,
I didn't I don't even remember are you doing this?
(35:01):
Because I actually had to go to the store and
I went to this hardware store and it was like
right next to like a little grocery store too, And
it was interesting because I'm like, okay, well I'll just
grab some snacks for dinner or whatever. Like. So I
go in there, I get my hose, my dump pose,
all these things, and then I go out and I
go to the grocery store. And then I'm coming out
and I remember walking to my r V and all
(35:23):
of a sudden, I see Amish people in a minivan,
so like they you know, some people can drive and
everything like that, and all of a sudden, there was
this like little kid ten eleven years old and he
has the bowl cut, you know, conic iconic amish Um culture.
(35:43):
And I'm coming through with like wearing a sweater with
my like sleeves pushed up and my tattoos showing and
in shorts, and then I'm like getting into my r
V with the dog, and I'm like looking at this
kid and he's looking at me, and we're just like
staring at each other because we're just like lost, like
(36:03):
in like this cultural difference. Like it was like the
first time I think I might have seen Amish in person,
and probably the first time he saw like a tattooed
guy getting in a RV with a little dog like
sitting on his lap while driving. So I mean it
was definitely one of those like cultural experiences that was
just like I want to learn more because I just,
(36:27):
you know, I'm not that I'm ignorant to it. I
just I Amish. I've always been like a fairy tale,
I guess to me, and that's just not not now.
But they were at that point, and since then, I've
like familiarized myself with more of their culture and things
like that. But there's just really one of those experiences
of like I'm gonna love the road. So many crazy
(36:50):
people crazy. Yeah, you're probably like a fairy tale to him,
like heavily tattooed, like a city person with a many
docks in and in RV he didn't he didn't even
see me. That would have thrown for a loop like
oh you're are you married to a man? Yeah? Right,
because I think I left you at the r V part.
(37:11):
I didn't remember that. This whole period of that weekend
was a blurer. I don't know what I was doing.
It was really I was sitting. I was just like
sitting at a pitching table at an m D r
V spot. I think you're working WiFi. And the one
part I do remember about like the r V in
our first like night or two was maybe I think
(37:33):
while you're out, you also bought a DVD ready player,
one that like Steven Spielberg movie that came that was
mind blowing. It was long. I remember being kind of exhausted.
It was like two and a half hours, but beautiful,
and we r V had at a DVD player in
it didn't I think it came with it came. So yeah,
(37:55):
we our first entertainment activity and there was watching Reddie
Player one, having like snacks, pop room something and realizing
for the first time we had no r WE WiFi.
Oh yeah, We're like, oh, this is gonna be a
big issue. So we um, I have to address that,
(38:16):
nip that in the bout right away. But we it's
been much smoother ever since. You are listening to park
Landia from my Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad.
(38:45):
This is park Landia and today we're talking about Mammoth
Cave National Park in Kentucky. Ecology. I'm really excited to
talk about cave colomy. It a lot here, so fascinating
and so much to impact. But it's more about like
how these um work within their environments, Like these different
(39:08):
animals and exactly have to live in caves, some don't.
There's a lot to go out for because Mammoth Cave
National parking ball is a case system and it's the
world's largest. Animals in this park are sorted into like
cave dwellers, surface dwellers, and those that live in the
in between um. The cave ecosystems are very delicate. All
(39:28):
the energy that feeds a cave comes from the surface,
and anything that stops this flow of nutrients into the
cave can mean like extinction for the animals that live there. So,
as you can imagine, populations of the cave dwelling species
are never very large, right, Yeah, and it's definitely very
delicate this ecosystem. For instance, agriculture around Mammoth Cave has
(39:50):
put the ecology of the cave system in danger, particularly
for the Kentucky cave shrimp, which is particularly vulnerable to
fertilizers and other water contaminants that make their way into
the via surface water. Whole populations of Kentucky cave shrimp
have crashed due to the water pollution and starting at
the surface. Isn't that crazy? Just like what we do
has impact on the animals. I mean, what a crazy concept,
(40:12):
trickles all the way down to these poor, helpless blind shrimp.
They're very delicate, they really are. And you know, the
cave ecosystem is really threatened by the overuse by tourists
as well. Um the lighting, trail constructions, the building of
unnatural cave entrances, and the excessive noise from the caves
during tours are even very stressful to animals. So us
(40:38):
as tourists. You know, we can bring in a lot
of like spores from like white nose syndrome for bats,
which will we'll talk about more in episode eight, but
it's all contributing to the steep decline in bad populations. Yeah,
and this also speaks more to the delicate balance of
(41:00):
how great it is that people visit Mammoth Cave and
are interested in it, but also how fragile an ecosystem
like this is, and how you need to be mindful
of that, especially with little things like excessive noise, like
just whispering goes a long way. You know, you don't
need to be shouting or like cracking jokes or you know,
going in big groups and all like hemming and hanging
(41:21):
the whole time or whatever. But it's it's great to
visit this place, to just do it in a respectful
way as much as possible. Absolutely so, to explore more
of the animals at Mammoth Cave, none of which we saw,
but all of which we are fastened to buy in respect.
There are three categories of animals that use the cave.
What are those three categories? I'll tell you. So. The
(41:44):
first one is called chocolobites and chocolobites are animals that
are specially evolved for living their entire lives in a cave.
These animals are often small and sort of ghostly looking, sightless,
with slow metabolism since food is scarce in the cave.
Most famous of chocolobites, of course, are the endangered Kentucky
cave shrimp. There's also two kinds of isless fish and
(42:06):
cave salamander, and even a blind crayfish. So, and these
are blind because they live in the caves, like, they
don't come out of it and again never I know
we said this earlier in the UM episode, but they
don't need sight. They never see light in any capacity. Yeah,
then there's like track files. These organisms might prefer cave
(42:27):
life to surface life, but they could honestly spend their
time in either place. They don't have to live in
the cave for any portion of their lives. Um. Some
examples of these in Mammoth are like the salamander's, crayfish,
spiders and spring fish. Right, yeah, exactly. So they're kind
of like almost the equivalent of like an amphibian or
(42:49):
something that could live in like water land, and they
have options come and go as they please. And then
the third category is troglozines and troglos is the Greek
for cave and zenos is the record for guests, so
these animals are cave visitors. And most notably, there are
twelve species of bats that use the cave system here,
(43:11):
including Indiana bats, gray bats, and bring big brown bats
to name a few. But two species are endangered now
and the number of the rest of the species are declining. Sadly,
because trocola deans are important to the ecology of the
cave because they bring nutrients in from the surface, and
because mammoth caves bat populations are suffering, the cave dwellers
(43:31):
can no longer depend on backwana for food and now
rely on other trocol deans like cave crickets impact rats
to bring energy in the form of carcasses, droppings, and
eggs from the surface. Yeah, isn't that crazy. I would
like finn be classified as what you tracolophile. Um I
could live in the US, I mean, I could be
(43:53):
a trocotphile. I'd rather not because I had you know,
I just wanted to talk about my favorite animals and
and I'm just really thinking about those like three things
to bring? Oh that run the spects with the number three. Yeah, yeah,
my favorite three things to bring? One could be Finn
(44:16):
and our dogs. Yes to Mammoth Cave. I think, like
we said, it's a surprisingly dog friendly park, so if
you have a dog, please bring him or her along.
Also bring a leash so that they can actually enjoy
the trails with you. Because to be a six foot
leash and there's reasons behind, like maximum, so do not
(44:36):
mess with it. Six ft leash. Every National park is
the same thing, yeah across the country, right right, and
guarantee your dog will love this park as much as
Finn did. Um some more stuff to bring or a
couple more things to bring to Mammoth Cave. One important
item is sturdy walking and or like hiking shoes, especially
when you're going down into the cave, because things can
(44:58):
get steep, narrow, craggy, and most notably quite dark. So
even if things are lit or you're holding a lantern
or something, this is a much darker place than the surface,
so you're gonna want shoes that won't be slipping and
sliding over things potentially. And then also while you're in
the cave, you should bring a jacket or sweater or
(45:21):
sweats or something like that. No matter what the temperature
is on the surface, whether it's scorching hot or it's
like degrees, it's almost constantly fifty four degrees in the cave,
which I think sounds kind of comfortable. That's like sweater weather.
So just going knowing that you don't want to be
like in a tank top because it's hot on the surface.
Then go down you're like some cold I'm gonna drop
(45:43):
the sun, you know. I want to know what your
favorite part of Mammoth Cave was. I mean, I'm truly fascinated.
There's so much that we've gone over, so much um
just of what we talked about, but then there's things
that we missed, But like, what was your favorite thing
from Mammoth Caves. I think my favorite thing was, and
I hope I'm not stealing this from you, because I
(46:04):
feel like that might be the case, but was when
we got to do that little trail with Finn and
that whole experience taking a photo with him at the
National Park sign because we always do photos together at
National Park signs wherever, whichever park we're at, and it
was really special and exciting to do that with Finn
for the first time, even though he was not cooperating
and did not know. There was just too much to
(46:24):
look at. I mean, obviously what beauty all around. Yeah
he's not Yeah, he doesn't notice the camera at all,
and that's fine. It was a great family photo nonetheless.
And he loved the trail. I thought it was the
perfect length for him and nice and flat and just
I was so happy and I loved doing that all together.
(46:47):
What about you? What was your favorite part? I know
this is weird, but like honestly finding out about elish shrimp,
that's not I mean, it is weird, but like learning
about the ecology and the wildlife he um, even the
differences between the like track lazines versus tracle files versus
like tracle bytes, like you know, that was really interesting
(47:11):
to understand. Yeah, the cave ecosystem is really deep, like
also literally deep. There animals living underground here deep underground
there really are And considering like all of our talk
about like mummies and eyelash shrimp. Uh, and you're afraid
of the dark. I think we should finish this episode
with a little horror story. Yeah, I know, because of Unsurprisingly,
(47:33):
Mammoth Cave is a park that has triggered the obsession
from HP Lovecraft himself, one of the foremost authorities on
horror and creepy fiction. He actually wrote a short story
that's set in Mammoth Cave, because of course he did.
When this place just is made for stuff like that.
It's called the Beast in the Cave, and it's the
kind of thing that nightmares are literally made of. Yeah,
(47:56):
and honest, it sounds like the plot of the movie
The Descent, which I have seen, but I've heard a
lot about, and I've read the Wikipedia page in detail
because that's what I do. I can't see horror movies
because I get traumatized too severely, but I love to
read Wikipedia pages and like experience the horror that way.
So here's a little teaser from that story. Yeah, it's
(48:17):
about a man touring Mammoth Cave who gets separated from
his group somehow, and he gets lost his torch eventually
goes out, leaving him in pitch dark. Yes, this is horrifying,
literally horrifying. He hears footsteps approaching, but they don't sound human,
so he throws a stone into the darkness. Towards the sound,
(48:37):
curious to hear what happens next. But I guess you
have to read the short story for yourself, right or
you could just be like me and not read that
story and watch a romantic comedy to erase this for
my memory. Already Player one, just go go watch Ready
with One. But really, though, like h. P. Lovecraft really
just gets it. I mean, Mammoth Cave is the most
(49:00):
hauntingly beautiful place you've been listening to. Park Landia, a
show about National Parks Parklandids the production of My Heart Radio,
created by Matt Carouac, Brad Caro Wac and Christopher has
The otis produced and edited by Mike John's. Our executive
producer is Christopher hasiotis our researcher's Jocelyn Shields. A special
(49:21):
things goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Christal Waters and the
rest of the Parklandia crew. And Hey listeners, if you're
enjoying the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
It helps other people like you find our show. You
can keep up with us on social media as well.
Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at
Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation in our
Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcast My Heart Radio,
(49:44):
visit the heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you
for listening.
When most people think of Kentucky, what do they think
of Bourbon Horse Races KFC? All true, all fitting, But
how about the largest cave system in the world. Even
crazier is the history behind Mammoth Cave National Park, which
is not only the longest cave on Earth by a
long shot, but all the weird and wild different ways
(00:20):
the cave has been used over the years. Yes, weird
and wild is definitely an accurate description, and I can't
wait to explore all of it in this week's episode
on This Kentucky Park. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad.
This is part Glandia production of I Heart Radio. We
packed up are loft in Chicago, moved into an r V,
(00:40):
and now we're traveling in the country exploring America's national
parks with our dog Finn. Today's episode is about Mammoth
Cave National Park in southern Kentucky. History. Now, the first
thing I want to talk about are these impressive stats.
Mammoth Cave consists of more than four hundred miles of
(01:01):
mapped cave, making it the longest cave in the world,
and it blows the competition straight out of the water. Yeah,
I mean, I I don't want to turn this thing
into like a competition or anything, but that's exactly what
I'm going to do. The second longest cave in the world,
it's systema sac Actomb in Mexico, and it's nearly half
the sizes of Mammoth Cave. Granted, still a two hundred
(01:22):
something mile cave. It's nothing to sneeze app but it's
no Mammoth Cave. And even more impressive is the fact
that theogy geologists are discovering and mapping more miles there
every single year. Um, they're estimating that there could be
as much as six hundred more miles yet to be discovered.
That's crazy that I'm overwhelmed just thinking about that, Like
where does it end? Is the whole world just sitting
(01:44):
above Mammoth Cave? Like is it under us right now?
I'm kind of kind of unnerved something. Um, this huge
takes a long time to explore, no doubt about that.
But it all started a few thousand years ago and
Native Americans in Kentucky discovered the area and they started
to explore the cave and in a search for like minerals, right,
(02:06):
so they were initially on the hunt for things like
gypsum and mara apolite. And we know they maintained some
presence here for at least a couple of thousand years
because of the artifacts and petroglyphs they left behind, including
some primative class and things like utensils. You know what
the else they left behind, what their own skeletons. Don't
don't do it. I'm going to remain calm right now,
(02:28):
but inside I'm screaming. Yeah, due to the fact that
the cave is like this um they maintain a consistent
level of temperature about fifty four degrees and the constant humidity.
It's like this prime environment preserving human bones and mummies.
I mean, is this like a park Landy episode or
(02:49):
an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? Because
I am afraid of the dark and I'm afraid of skeletons,
and this is terrifying. But after some two thousand years
of occupation an exploration, most Native Americans abandoned the caves.
And I mean, I get it, I would too if
they were like literal mummies, student all over the place
and pinned under rocks like something out of a nightmare. Yeah.
(03:11):
And another interesting mystery is that no one really knows
what they were using these minerals for and why they
were clearly so important for such a long time. Yeah,
something tells me they weren't using the minerals to make
moot rings or anything like that, especially since I assumed
the primary mood would just be constant fear, probably like
a visceral primal terror at all times. But that's just me. Yeah. Enough,
(03:36):
the cave just sat pretty much empty and unexplored for
a couple of millennia before it was even discovered again
by a hunter, John hutchins Um. As the story goes,
he had had shot and injured a black bear and
then led him into the cave's entrance. Yeah. I definitely
don't approve of the bear hunting, but otherwise that that
really is a fascinating story. It's like a violent fairy
(03:57):
tale or something. I just love how with cave in
general has so much like mythical, scary miss like mysterious
history attached to it. It's really kind of incredible. Yew
Then things really start to get even weirder and wilder.
Humans started to use the caves for all different purposes. Yeah,
they really did. Emth cave actually played a role in
(04:19):
the War of eighteen twelve. Shockingly enough, when British troops
cut off gunpowder supplies in the East, Americans retreated to
the huge cave to mind calcium nitrate and create their
own gunpowder. And since there's basically a limitless supply of
that stuff here, it enabled the American army to significantly
increase their arms in the war, which is wild. I mean,
(04:40):
the manth Cave like played a role in the War
of eighteen twelve. Yeah, that's just absolutely insane. Guess what
else people usually cave for. Well, if I didn't actually
know the answer to that, I would say something like
mummy museum or like subterranean Bourbon distillery. But I do
know the answer to that, so I'm just going to
point out that Mammoth Cave has been used as a
(05:01):
church and even as a tuberculosis treatment center. Again wild, weird,
what the hell? Because can you imagine going to like
a church in a cave, or like getting medical treatment here, like, oh,
I'm gonna go like get my shots, get my flu
shots and Mammoth Cave. Yeah, but thenk goodness, Like, unsurprisingly,
neither of these things lasted very long here, right, which
(05:23):
makes sense? Because they're both absolutely crazy. Use this for
a four hundred mile long cave. Yeah. Ultimately, though, something
that did catch on um and stick was tourism for
various reasons. Over the years, the public was hearing more
and more about this enormous cave system, and curiosity was building.
Cave tours started in eighteen sixteen, and they've stunningly been
(05:44):
occurring over and over again ever since, even through the
Civil War yep, priorities apparently so, even though the fate
of the country was dangling by a thread, people are
still interested in touring Mammoth Cave, which I fully understand.
It's an alluring under on the world. Yeah. It's also
the same time that, like early cave tour guides like
Stephen Bishop explored and named different portions of the cave
(06:07):
like the Mammoth Dome and Goren's Dome. He even described
the cave as a grand, gloomy and peculiar place. Yeah,
which is a perfect description and pretty on the nose.
And then Stephen's great nephew, at Bishop, who kind of
continued the family legacy, he joined up with a man
named Max Camper to formally map out more parts of
(06:28):
the cave. Discovering and naming things like Violet City and
Elizabeth's Dome, both of which sound kind of lovely, absolutely
and so beautiful. I mean clear tourism was like ramping
up quickly, and by ny the cave had several thousand
annual visitors flocking from near and far. I mean, it's
just such an amazing thing to think, because caves this
(06:52):
big just didn't exist. So it became such a tourism
magnet that money hungry locals wanted to get in on
the action and find their own new sections of the
cave to monetize it. Yeah, which sadly is not surprising
that people were doing this then and chopping at the
bit to turn Mammoth Cave into a cash grab. I
(07:12):
mean that's America. Yeah, so here we are. And then
you have people like George Morrison at the time, who
used dynamite to blow out what he what he called
the new entrance, or this poor fellow named Floyd Collins
who got himself stuck while exploring a portion of cave
and end up dying down there after seventeen days, which
is horrific. What a nightmare. It's like an are you
(07:33):
fraid of the dark? Story that just never ends. Fortunately,
all this greed and tourism and the death is what
urged the federal government to protect the cave and make
it a national park, not only to protect the land,
but to protect these like swarms of people who have
been recklessly exploring and putting themselves at risk and endanger
like and possibly ruining the cave. Yeah, ruining the cave,
(07:54):
ruining I mean your your life apparent, like Floyd Collins
getting himself stuck. That's crazy. It reminds me of that movie,
Um James Franco movie, What was it right or whenever?
We had So it's like that, except Floyd didn't survive.
But thank god someone eventually intervened because we don't want
m Cave turning into a four hundred miles sarcophagus. Yikes.
(08:17):
This led Mammoth Cave officially becoming a National park in
nineteen UM. At that time, there were only like forty
none miles in the cave, give or take, and so
that just goes to show you the incredible work and
safe discovery that can occur when it's in the right hand. Absolutely,
geologists were able to discover that there were actually several
(08:38):
cave systems that wind up all being connected and when
they're all pieced together, that's how we got the hundreds
of known miles that we have today. And even though
the miles are seemingly endless, there are really only fourteen
of them that are accessible for tours today. But that's
the reality. For the best, um, and for the worst.
The safety of the visitors, that's what's the most important.
(08:58):
You don't want to end up as like skeletons down there. No, No,
that's not what this place should be. And I'm going
to go scream into a pillow. Now, Mammoth Cave holds
(09:19):
a very special place in our nomadic hearts. Um. It's
actually the very first national park we visited when we
got an RV. Yeah, that's very true. Before this, my
heart really wasn't a nomadic heart, but I think Mammoth
Cave kind of triggered that. And this was our first
foray into the RV lifestyle and like nomadic living and
(09:40):
all that. So it was our very first RV trip
in general. We had freshly purchased our r V in Indiana.
It was August. We were down there for a weekend
and then wrote it down to Mammoth Cave to kind
of christen it and make it all feel official, And
what better way to do that than by going to
a national park. Yeah, I mean it was just a
(10:01):
fantastic little journey driving down there. In the first place
we had to pick was a k away. I mean
they just like we love them, um so near Uh,
it was right near Natmam the Cave, and we stayed
there for a couple of days because we knew it
would be easy to visit the park and then of
course some other things like bourbon distilleries. Yeah, so that
that was a priority. We wanted to be close to
(10:23):
a national park and also just kind of surrounded by Bourbon.
And it worked out really well and that was a
great weekend. They're both perfect. We also went kind of
mistakenly to a Kentucky winery. Can we not get into them? Yeah,
this is Kentucky is great at bourbon and those are
totally worthwhile and there's so many wonderful distilleries. But this
(10:46):
is not Napa Valley by any means, so let's skim
right by that. Yeah. So we stated at this like
amazing k Away. Um. They had a great mini golf
course and one of those giant little bouncy pillows, Like
it's basically like an inflated like trampoline. That what it is.
It's like a huge, gigantic earth marshmallow or something, and
they're probably meant for kids, but I totally got into
(11:10):
it and I had a blast, Like he took photos
of me, and I don't I've never been that happy,
like as an adult. I was just bouncing up and down,
getting some serious like elevation or whatever you call that
when you're bouncing. I just really love that you called
it an earth marshmallow. Marshmallows, that's the technical term for
these things. Yeah, we'll go with that. Um. So that
(11:31):
was that was a great time. And then right next
to that was a basketball court where we I think
we got basketballs from the camp, like the store or
something that they let us borrow, and then we played
horse horse I love it. So we got really sporty,
like a lot sportier then we usually do, which is
usually Yeah. I mean, it was really fun and it
(11:53):
was the first weekends thing in the RV, so it
was really special, and we had Fan with us, of course,
and he got comfortable in it real quick, which was
a huge relief. Honestly, Yeah, he got comfy and cozy
shockingly fast, and he did really well. I was like
super nervous. This was probably one of my biggest like
anxieties going into it. Was just worrying about Finn and
how like potentially anxious and scared and square me he
(12:14):
would be because like when we were in the loft
in Chicago, wh would do that frequently, Like even when
it started to drizzle rain outside, he would freak out.
So going into the r V, I'm like, he's going
to be like constant meltdowns, and then I would it
would just reflect on me, just like his father, which
would definitely annoy you. Yeah right, so we're the same
and you would be dealing with both of us too,
(12:34):
neurotic messes next to you. But he calmed down really
quick and then it was much better for both of us.
Although honestly, I was still kind of freaking out from
buying the r V and I'm still freaking out a
little bit like a year and a half later, So yeah,
I mean, it really did happen fast. You know, one
week we're talking about buying an r V and selling
or loft in Chicago. The next thing you know, I'm
(12:55):
calling Matt telling him the house we owe for a
don deposit, and you know, it's just one of those
crazy times where it's just a whirlwind and I just
we're kind of like compulsive, so we just jump into
things and we just dive into it and we do it.
And this was one of those cases where it was
like the biggest compulsive thing that we've ever done together
(13:17):
or yeah, by far, yeah, because I guess I am
kind of compulsive, but I do freak out about it.
Obviously that it did work out for the best, and
the fact that we're able to celebrate this huge new
chapter together by visiting a national park made it all
much easier. Yeah, and we'll definitely talk more in depth
about our r V experience later in the episode, but
(13:37):
I think we need to explore the cave. Oh yeah,
of course cave. So obviously cave towards are the thing
to do here, and we made sure to book our
tour reservations online in advance, which costs a small fee, nothing,
nothing major, and highly recommend that you do this in advance,
(14:01):
especially in the summer months like when we went, because
it was quite crowded. There was long lines, in the
visitor center to either purchase tickets or pick up tickets
that you had reserved in advance. I'm definitely glad we did,
because like, yeah, it was definitely at capacity. I mean
it was a pretty long line in the visitor center,
just a kid tickets, and they were like, if you're
(14:21):
for the eleven thirty um am showing of the this
cave tour, step up front and then you have to
like wiggle your way through because we were getting so
close to the time that we had to jump on
the bus to go over there. I just remember it
was like really intense. It was yeah, much more sun
than I thought it would be. I was a little stressed,
and I was afraid that like we might wind up
in the wrong line or like go towards the wrong
(14:43):
bus or something, because there was a lot of like
moving parts here, and I'm like, I don't know, yeah,
And it was like again one of our first uh
not our first national park together, but like this first
whole experience and you're your normal ability to like problems
is kind of shocked when you're first getting into our
V lifestyle because at least for us, because we never
(15:07):
camped in an RV and did it like you've you
did it like a family trip. Yeah, I was like twelve,
but that doesn't really count because you didn't do anything
in there and like to like help put up or anything.
So it's just a whole new experience and we're just
often always running behind. But it was a fun time. Yeah,
all these adjustments and crammed into this like one like
(15:27):
inaugural weekend, but it all, it was all great. Man
with the cave was a lot of fun. So the
tour that we did was the Domes and Dripstones Tour, which,
as you might expect, is filled with domes and dripstones
spoiler alert. And as with most cave formations here, they're
made by water slowly trickling in from the surface and
mixing with carbon dioxide. The latter has the ability to
(15:48):
dissolve limestone, and over time, like lots of time, thousands
and thousands of years, they create these lavish looking cave
structures like gnarly stalagmites and stalactites that seeming need dango
from the cave ceiling. Sometimes salactites come in such clusters
that they resemble frozen waterfalls, like with the popular formation
here called frozen Niagara, which I love. Oh yeah, And
(16:10):
for the Domes and Gripstone tour. We boarded the green
colored school bus to get there from the visitor center,
driving along some small roads into the woods where the
tour begins through a door that looks like it just
disappears into the forest. And the thing I loved about
this is just like it was dreaming it was or
it could have been terrifying, you know, it could be
the beginning of a are you afraid of the dark?
(16:33):
Sorry spoiler. They do turn off all the lights in
the caves. Yeah, so it gets dark, and I was
a little afraid. But that was that was great. I
like that we did the tour where like we all
boarded at this bus and I had this like communal
experience in a sense. And I haven't been on a
school bus and I don't know, it's like seventeen no
bussing now because I was driving in so it's been
(16:56):
a long time. And it was it was fun. It
was like this kind of a stalgic vibe happening as
we're winding our way up towards the start of the
tour and adding to the kind of mysticism of all
of this whole experience was it was rainy and kind
of a gloomy dre every day, but I think it
added to it. In the forest that we had to
walk through a little bit to get to the entryway
(17:18):
was like super thick, superlash and green. So walking through
it to get to the door was just stunning in
and of itself. I could have explored that section and
like not even gone underground, or would have been like,
this is great, um, but there's this door that is
kind of in the middle of the woods, seemingly like
it kind of emerges out of nowhere, and you all
(17:40):
go single file into this door and then down a
step of steep stairs, So heads up. Not ideal for
people with a fear of enclosed spaces, heights, or darkness,
just all of the fears, all of the fears. The
tricky thing with a group tour of the size is
that the guide is way in front of you usually,
so you have to follow through a long, narrow line
(18:01):
before meeting up to regroup and learn more about the cave.
Once you can all see the guide and you know
the guide's telling you things while you're walking right and
you're missing them because you're in the back and it's like, man,
you really need to try to get up to that front.
But we're more of like the back settlers, like you
like to allow everyone else. We like people watching, so
we do. And you're like talking a little bit with
(18:22):
some people in front of you or behind you, making
friends in the cave. And you know, the thing about this,
like the good thing is the guide will meet up
with you over and over again. It happens several times,
especially during this tour, so you don't miss too much
and he will go over things that he was telling
on the way. But um, yeah, they're close. Bear in mind. Yeah,
if you're the type of person who wants constant, like
(18:45):
little ty bits of information and just maybe the comfort
of being close to a guide or whatever, you might
want to like make sure that you're towards the front,
you know, or just back to that in It was
fun though, and we could be like in these massive
amphitheater like spaces periodically where the guide would point out
different formations and the thousands of years it took for
(19:07):
water to create it drip by drip by drip by drip.
There are some fun and cute formations that he pointed
out to like something on the cave ceilings that he
said resembles an upside down dollhouse. Yeah. I like that,
although like that's not something I would have envisioned myself
if he didn't point that out, because it's so specific, Like, oh,
(19:28):
sure that does look like an upside down dollhouse glued
to the ceiling, But now it's like burned into my
memory and it's one of my favorite things that we
saw there. It's cute. And another super cruel aspect of
Mammoth Cave are the underground waterways, something we've never seen
before in a cave, or something I didn't even realize
was actually like a real thing. I've seen like little
(19:50):
kind of mini cave pools in other caves like Carl's
Bad caverns, but not like actual waterways. But at Mammoth
Cave there are sections here are called things like the
Dead Sea and the River Sticks, both fittingly ominous, which
run alongside some motionless waterways. They're so still and dark
that you almost don't even notice their water. And another
(20:10):
surprising fact is that these waterways are actually home to animals,
specifically shrimp Kentucky Cave shrimp crazy who. Yeah, these definitely
aren't the kind of shrimp that you're used to seeing though.
Um their albino and iiilis and they only live in
the deepest regions of the cave, right, so you're not
going to see these in a shrimp cocktail anytime soon. No,
(20:33):
And I feel like I'm actually glad we didn't see
any because they sound really creepy. I don't want to
like pass judgment and so they're like fine docile animals,
but they sound horrific and I'd rather just learn about
them and respect them from afar, like from the comforts
of Theorist surface where things aren't pitch black and early quiet. Yeah. Absolutely,
(20:53):
And a really cool fun fact about them is, like
the reason the hilist is because they live in a cave,
don't need that. If they don't need their like it's
always so that's how they adapted, like adapted to their surroundings.
But back on the tour, the domes and dripstones take
about like two hours and set aside from the narrow
like dimly lit steps, it's pretty easy to do. But
(21:13):
if you're looking for something even easier and less intimidating,
try the Frozen Niagara Tour, which is a little over
an hour, and it's just like a less deep underground right, Yeah,
that one. That one was much um, easier and more
straightforward and takes you to one of these most iconic
sites or cave formations in the park. Or if you're
looking to go in the opposite direction and amp up
(21:35):
your adrenaline, the Wild Cave Tour could be for you.
It sounds terrifying to me, but I'm also a little
intrigued since it requires some serious sper lunking over the
course of six hours. Jesus, it's pretty hardcore and it's
very hands on. Um. There are lots of dark, tight
spaces to squeeze through. It's worth noting that all participants
(21:56):
must be sixteen years old and meet a size your arm.
You know, you can actually like make sure you can
fit through the tiny spaces like in the beginning, like
like box demonstration box, to make sure you can do it, yeah,
because you don't want to be down in the cave
and be like, oh j K, I can't fit. Yeah,
(22:17):
And even even like knowing that I could fit, I
think I would still be horrified. So I'm not sure
if I could pull the trigger in this and actually
do something like the Wild Cave Tour. But I did
actually go sparlunking in a cave in Barbadoes not too
long ago, so I know I could do it. Granted,
like the spurlocking thing was kind of sprung on me.
I didn't know like the cave tour I did in
Barbados included that, So that was a bit of a surprise,
(22:41):
unsettling surprise when suddenly I was doing that. Um And
also that tour wasn't six hours long, so it's a
little more doable. That would be like a really epic
adventure though. It what I think it would be fun
to do, like a National Park buckalist experience at Ma
of the Cave at the at the world's largest cave.
(23:02):
You are listening to park Landia from my Heart Radio. Hi,
(23:30):
I'm Matt and I'm Brad. This is park Landia. In
today's episode is on Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky,
where we're talking more about cave tours that you can
do here. Most cave tours at Mammoth Cave actually started
out the old fashioned way at the historic entrance by
the visitor center. This is where the earliest Native Americans
first entered the cave, and it's where visitors still entered
(23:51):
the cave for tours of sections like Gothic Avenue, Star Chamber,
trog which sounds like a ride at Disney or something,
Violet City, and River Sticks and that's s t y
X by the way, as in the underground river from
Greek mythology, like to get to the underworld. And I
think it's perfect here, it really is, And the historic
(24:13):
entrance is a great way to experience the park, just
like the natural entrance at Carl's Bed caverns Um. It's
amazing to slowly descend beneath the Earth's surface and feel
like things are gradually getting dark around you. It's like
darker and darker. And of course they have these like
lanterns along the way to prevent you from like crashing
into things or falling into the bottomless pits. But you know,
(24:33):
it feels natural. Yeah, and it's the best way to
experience a cave for sure. But there's actually a lot
more to explore man withth cave beyond the actual cave itself,
surprisingly enough trails. Yeah, it's a little too. In fact,
that Mammoth Cave actually has about eighty miles of hiking
trails on the surface, um, all through this beautiful train
(24:54):
like forests, rolling hills and the Green River Valley. Yeah,
that's a lot of hiking trails. And I had no idea.
I know you didn't know about this, and I think
most most people don't because of the half a million
annual visitors that come to Mammoth Cave, two thirds of
them focus only on cave tours and don't do anything
on the surface whatsoever. They come here for one thing
(25:15):
and one thing only. And I think that's obviously understandable.
But you know, it feels like there's basically a whole
another park up here on the surface. It's just so
serene and beautiful. And another fun fact that was convenient
for us was it's super dog friendly. It really was
like crazy, who to thunk. I actually wrote an article
about this a few years ago, so it was like
(25:36):
fresh in my memory and we're coming here about how
Mammoth Cave is one of the most dog friendly national
parks in the country. They obviously can't go into the
cave itself, but if they're leashed, you can take them
on pretty much all the surface trails. Yeah, we went
for a little hike with Finn on the sand Cave Trail,
making Mammoth Caves finn first official national park. That was
(25:58):
a big deal, big moment for him and for huge
for us as his parents. Yeah, and it was. I
think the Sand Cave Trail was also the perfect trail
for him because it's short and easy and it's all
on this even boardwalk through this gorgeous forest filled with
tall trees and flowers and just like super chill, relaxing
(26:18):
and peaceful. We're the only ones on it when we
did it, which is great. And it ends by the
entrance to sand Cave where that poor guy for Floyd
Collins got stuck and died, so you learn a lot
more about that, and then other like sand Cave tidbits
along the way. There's signs that are well marked. So
it's great. It's very inportant. It's beautiful. I mean, it's
a national park, right, and you've got all that great
(26:40):
things with Cave is just filled with creepy and dark
history all over the place though either literally dark or
dark in other ways, like right, So it's kind of
a funny juxtposition because like we're in this forest that's
like so quiet, and calming almost like zen like, and
then all of a sudden, here's the signs, like, oh,
here's where someone died. You're like, oh, okay, the caves
(27:01):
have high sorry, um, and like it's it's kind of
nice to reminder that of that, I guess in the
history and all the people who have been here and
experienced it in different ways, some less fortunate than us,
like Floyd. But even though I was definitely happy go
lucky while taking Finn on his first National Park hike
(27:23):
and setting up the camera to post for our first
family photo by the National Park sign, it was such
a beautiful moment, and it was such a beautiful moment.
And there's just so many other hiking options as well,
I mean more on the north side of the Green River. Um.
And you can only get there with the Green River Ferry,
which drops you off at the Maple Springs Group campground
(27:44):
where a lot of trailheads are. Um. It's worth the
extra effort though, because it's the side of the park
that has a lot less visitors, so it's great for
finding more quiet and like serenity in the woods right exactly,
And unlike the River sticks underground, the Green River won't
bring you to Hades Underworld, so that's that's a plus.
That's definitely a plus. So if you're going to stick
(28:07):
to the south side of the Green River though, which
is by the visitor center, one trail that you need
to hike, I think is the River Sticks Spring Trail,
so obviously you're above ground you this whole time. It
goes right by the historic entrance, so you can see
what that looks like and snap a few pictures, which
I think you should absolutely do because it's phenomenal, and
(28:27):
then it follows the River Sticks where it exits the
cave and that eventually flows into the Green River. Altogether,
it's only about like a half mile total, which is
super easy and almost entirely flat, but it packs a
lot of cool sites into a short length. So if
you only have time for like one surface trail, I
think this is a really good option. And speaking of rivers, though,
(28:48):
another thing that most people don't realize about Mammoth Cave
is that it's the perfect park for paddling. The park
doesn't actually rent kayaks or canoes or host pladdling tours,
but there are plenty of local outfitters that you can
like get with and they'll do that with you. And
the Green River is a great easy trip for a
leisurely flowed through out this like gorgeous forest and along
(29:12):
the trees line. It's Kentucky. I mean, it is beautiful.
It's a great place. Um But all in all, like
the Green River flows through the park for about so
there's plenty of water ways to explore here. Yeah, we
need to do that. We didn't do that while we're here,
and I don't think we understood just how much opportunity
there was here for paddling, and I think a lot
(29:32):
of people don't realize that as well. But it's sounds great.
It's super intriguing. And also my favorite thing about the
Green Rivers that it's lined with a bunch of sandbars
and these kind of rocky little islands, so tons of
places along the way that you could stop and relax
and like have lunch and just kind of chill out
and dip your feet in the water. It's it sounds
(29:53):
perfectly quiet and relaxing. Swimming is not recommended though, because
the river tends to be kind of strong and super
are unpredictable, but that's that's fine. It's still like very
relaxing and scenic, and you can also go fishing if
you're into that sort of thing. You won't catch any
of those Kentucky cave shrimp, but the Green and Nolan
Rivers have plenty of catfish and perch and bath. Yeah.
(30:15):
And in terms of other wildlife beyond fish and cave shrimp,
Mammoth Cave National Park also has animals like beavers, coyotes,
bald eagles, herons, mink, and skunks, but most of which
you probably won't see. They're pretty elusive and rare. We
we didn't see like any of these, No, but there's
plenty to marvel at within this like nature filled park.
(30:35):
Um Park is located at a geographic part of the
country where the cooler North meets the warmer South. Has
a huge array of different flowers and grasses and biodiversity
in general. Yeah right, it's like the best of both
worlds or best of both you know parts of the country.
I guess this place really is just bursting with surprises.
(30:55):
Mammoth Cave like paddling surface trails, blind shrimp. There's so
much here, both beneath the ground and above it. So
much food. Now that we've explored Mammoth Cave from the
underground and the surface. Let's talk about another one of
my favorite Kentucky activities drinking bourbon. Yes, yeah, you can't
(31:19):
like not go to distilier when you're in Kentucky, especially
when you're this close to Kentucky Bourbon country. And for us,
like we love bourbon, we always have a stuff supply
of it in the RV. It's a big priority. And
I remember while we were here, we were trying to
visit a couple of the big ones, like the iconic
distilleries like Jim Beam after our cave tour. But for
(31:40):
some reason, most distilleries here have superlimited hours that end
like weirdly early afternoon, like one pm or two pm
or something, which is create like what why are people
doing distillery tours that like noon? Right? But luckily we
were able to visit Bardstown Bourbon Company and Bardstown, Kentucky.
It's one of the newer distiller is in the area,
and it was beautiful and quite modern looking, very modern looking.
(32:04):
It looks like a sleek contemporary lab or something. From
the outside and huge like in the middle of this
like big field and inside was just as beautiful. We
didn't do any distillery to or anything like that. But
we did get drinks and food at the distilleries restaurant,
which is called Bottle and Bond Kitchen and Bar appropriate.
I like it. Yeah, it was so cool. Um you
(32:26):
can see into the main distillery through the wall while
you're drinking. Um. It was literally perfect and the cocktails
were amazing. Yeah, we were really happy there. I don't
really like just sipping bourbon by itself necessarily, It's not
like my go to, so I'd much rather taste it
this way, like in a cocktail in The bartenders here
were really really good and clearly very creative. They have
(32:50):
things like barrel aged old fashions and barrel aged Manhattans
and mules with type basil and other fun things like
the Stay Gold cocktail, which has bourbon, honey, lemon, and
turmeric and Moroccan spices. And I as someone like I
obsessed with turmeric, so I'm fully and with that. They
even had like a few tiki cocktails, which is a
(33:10):
huge surprise, um, because we love our tiki drinks and
so this was perfect for us. Um. I think we
shared the Kentucky Sling, which was has this like rye whiskey, gin, pineapple,
cherry herring and benedictine served in a fun little tiki mug.
Of course, we can't say no to a good tiki drink,
especially in a bourbon distillery, which is again a very
(33:30):
pleasant surprise. It really was, I mean, you know, another
surprise was it was those like glazed Brussels sprouts with
blue cheese and chicken fried oysters, and then they had
like sweet potato oknoky. You love that, I mean I
do too. And this is like our ideal scenario which
just like sitting dining and drinking at the bar, talking
with the bartender, learning and it was just a great
(33:55):
way to wind down our day in Kentucky r V.
And now we definitely got to talk more about our
r V experience here since this was our first foray
into life on the road, a lot of learning curves,
lots of them. Um. Luckily, we're gonna have um like
an episode in the future Boon document Brad that's gonna
(34:18):
be talking about the essentials, which will be about most
of our unexpected things that we had to get on
our first trip. Um. But we definitely didn't have a
dump post, so we had to go get our dumpos.
We the homely ask. It was like the water hose,
which was an issue because like I got the wrong kind,
Like I didn't think there was a wrong kind, um,
(34:40):
but I had to learn it all to hook up,
like I the organizing it. Um. They're like leveling box
and all these different things that I didn't think about RV.
They gave you everything. They don't spoil over. I didn't
see and like this, so's how oblivious I was, Like
I'm learning all this for the first time, like right now,
I didn't I don't even remember are you doing this?
(35:01):
Because I actually had to go to the store and
I went to this hardware store and it was like
right next to like a little grocery store too, And
it was interesting because I'm like, okay, well I'll just
grab some snacks for dinner or whatever. Like. So I
go in there, I get my hose, my dump pose,
all these things, and then I go out and I
go to the grocery store. And then I'm coming out
and I remember walking to my r V and all
(35:23):
of a sudden, I see Amish people in a minivan,
so like they you know, some people can drive and
everything like that, and all of a sudden, there was
this like little kid ten eleven years old and he
has the bowl cut, you know, conic iconic amish Um culture.
(35:43):
And I'm coming through with like wearing a sweater with
my like sleeves pushed up and my tattoos showing and
in shorts, and then I'm like getting into my r
V with the dog, and I'm like looking at this
kid and he's looking at me, and we're just like
staring at each other because we're just like lost, like
(36:03):
in like this cultural difference. Like it was like the
first time I think I might have seen Amish in person,
and probably the first time he saw like a tattooed
guy getting in a RV with a little dog like
sitting on his lap while driving. So I mean it
was definitely one of those like cultural experiences that was
just like I want to learn more because I just,
(36:27):
you know, I'm not that I'm ignorant to it. I
just I Amish. I've always been like a fairy tale,
I guess to me, and that's just not not now.
But they were at that point, and since then, I've
like familiarized myself with more of their culture and things
like that. But there's just really one of those experiences
of like I'm gonna love the road. So many crazy
(36:50):
people crazy. Yeah, you're probably like a fairy tale to him,
like heavily tattooed, like a city person with a many
docks in and in RV he didn't he didn't even
see me. That would have thrown for a loop like
oh you're are you married to a man? Yeah? Right,
because I think I left you at the r V part.
(37:11):
I didn't remember that. This whole period of that weekend
was a blurer. I don't know what I was doing.
It was really I was sitting. I was just like
sitting at a pitching table at an m D r
V spot. I think you're working WiFi. And the one
part I do remember about like the r V in
our first like night or two was maybe I think
(37:33):
while you're out, you also bought a DVD ready player,
one that like Steven Spielberg movie that came that was
mind blowing. It was long. I remember being kind of exhausted.
It was like two and a half hours, but beautiful,
and we r V had at a DVD player in
it didn't I think it came with it came. So yeah,
(37:55):
we our first entertainment activity and there was watching Reddie
Player one, having like snacks, pop room something and realizing
for the first time we had no r WE WiFi.
Oh yeah, We're like, oh, this is gonna be a
big issue. So we um, I have to address that,
(38:16):
nip that in the bout right away. But we it's
been much smoother ever since. You are listening to park
Landia from my Heart Radio. Hi, I'm Matt and I'm Brad.
(38:45):
This is park Landia and today we're talking about Mammoth
Cave National Park in Kentucky. Ecology. I'm really excited to
talk about cave colomy. It a lot here, so fascinating
and so much to impact. But it's more about like
how these um work within their environments, Like these different
(39:08):
animals and exactly have to live in caves, some don't.
There's a lot to go out for because Mammoth Cave
National parking ball is a case system and it's the
world's largest. Animals in this park are sorted into like
cave dwellers, surface dwellers, and those that live in the
in between um. The cave ecosystems are very delicate. All
(39:28):
the energy that feeds a cave comes from the surface,
and anything that stops this flow of nutrients into the
cave can mean like extinction for the animals that live there. So,
as you can imagine, populations of the cave dwelling species
are never very large, right, Yeah, and it's definitely very
delicate this ecosystem. For instance, agriculture around Mammoth Cave has
(39:50):
put the ecology of the cave system in danger, particularly
for the Kentucky cave shrimp, which is particularly vulnerable to
fertilizers and other water contaminants that make their way into
the via surface water. Whole populations of Kentucky cave shrimp
have crashed due to the water pollution and starting at
the surface. Isn't that crazy? Just like what we do
has impact on the animals. I mean, what a crazy concept,
(40:12):
trickles all the way down to these poor, helpless blind shrimp.
They're very delicate, they really are. And you know, the
cave ecosystem is really threatened by the overuse by tourists
as well. Um the lighting, trail constructions, the building of
unnatural cave entrances, and the excessive noise from the caves
during tours are even very stressful to animals. So us
(40:38):
as tourists. You know, we can bring in a lot
of like spores from like white nose syndrome for bats,
which will we'll talk about more in episode eight, but
it's all contributing to the steep decline in bad populations. Yeah,
and this also speaks more to the delicate balance of
(41:00):
how great it is that people visit Mammoth Cave and
are interested in it, but also how fragile an ecosystem
like this is, and how you need to be mindful
of that, especially with little things like excessive noise, like
just whispering goes a long way. You know, you don't
need to be shouting or like cracking jokes or you know,
going in big groups and all like hemming and hanging
(41:21):
the whole time or whatever. But it's it's great to
visit this place, to just do it in a respectful
way as much as possible. Absolutely so, to explore more
of the animals at Mammoth Cave, none of which we saw,
but all of which we are fastened to buy in respect.
There are three categories of animals that use the cave.
What are those three categories? I'll tell you. So. The
(41:44):
first one is called chocolobites and chocolobites are animals that
are specially evolved for living their entire lives in a cave.
These animals are often small and sort of ghostly looking, sightless,
with slow metabolism since food is scarce in the cave.
Most famous of chocolobites, of course, are the endangered Kentucky
cave shrimp. There's also two kinds of isless fish and
(42:06):
cave salamander, and even a blind crayfish. So, and these
are blind because they live in the caves, like, they
don't come out of it and again never I know
we said this earlier in the UM episode, but they
don't need sight. They never see light in any capacity. Yeah,
then there's like track files. These organisms might prefer cave
(42:27):
life to surface life, but they could honestly spend their
time in either place. They don't have to live in
the cave for any portion of their lives. Um. Some
examples of these in Mammoth are like the salamander's, crayfish,
spiders and spring fish. Right, yeah, exactly. So they're kind
of like almost the equivalent of like an amphibian or
(42:49):
something that could live in like water land, and they
have options come and go as they please. And then
the third category is troglozines and troglos is the Greek
for cave and zenos is the record for guests, so
these animals are cave visitors. And most notably, there are
twelve species of bats that use the cave system here,
(43:11):
including Indiana bats, gray bats, and bring big brown bats
to name a few. But two species are endangered now
and the number of the rest of the species are declining. Sadly,
because trocola deans are important to the ecology of the
cave because they bring nutrients in from the surface, and
because mammoth caves bat populations are suffering, the cave dwellers
(43:31):
can no longer depend on backwana for food and now
rely on other trocol deans like cave crickets impact rats
to bring energy in the form of carcasses, droppings, and
eggs from the surface. Yeah, isn't that crazy. I would
like finn be classified as what you tracolophile. Um I
could live in the US, I mean, I could be
(43:53):
a trocotphile. I'd rather not because I had you know,
I just wanted to talk about my favorite animals and
and I'm just really thinking about those like three things
to bring? Oh that run the spects with the number three. Yeah, yeah,
my favorite three things to bring? One could be Finn
(44:16):
and our dogs. Yes to Mammoth Cave. I think, like
we said, it's a surprisingly dog friendly park, so if
you have a dog, please bring him or her along.
Also bring a leash so that they can actually enjoy
the trails with you. Because to be a six foot
leash and there's reasons behind, like maximum, so do not
(44:36):
mess with it. Six ft leash. Every National park is
the same thing, yeah across the country, right right, and
guarantee your dog will love this park as much as
Finn did. Um some more stuff to bring or a
couple more things to bring to Mammoth Cave. One important
item is sturdy walking and or like hiking shoes, especially
when you're going down into the cave, because things can
(44:58):
get steep, narrow, craggy, and most notably quite dark. So
even if things are lit or you're holding a lantern
or something, this is a much darker place than the surface,
so you're gonna want shoes that won't be slipping and
sliding over things potentially. And then also while you're in
the cave, you should bring a jacket or sweater or
(45:21):
sweats or something like that. No matter what the temperature
is on the surface, whether it's scorching hot or it's
like degrees, it's almost constantly fifty four degrees in the cave,
which I think sounds kind of comfortable. That's like sweater weather.
So just going knowing that you don't want to be
like in a tank top because it's hot on the surface.
Then go down you're like some cold I'm gonna drop
(45:43):
the sun, you know. I want to know what your
favorite part of Mammoth Cave was. I mean, I'm truly fascinated.
There's so much that we've gone over, so much um
just of what we talked about, but then there's things
that we missed, But like, what was your favorite thing
from Mammoth Caves. I think my favorite thing was, and
I hope I'm not stealing this from you, because I
(46:04):
feel like that might be the case, but was when
we got to do that little trail with Finn and
that whole experience taking a photo with him at the
National Park sign because we always do photos together at
National Park signs wherever, whichever park we're at, and it
was really special and exciting to do that with Finn
for the first time, even though he was not cooperating
and did not know. There was just too much to
(46:24):
look at. I mean, obviously what beauty all around. Yeah
he's not Yeah, he doesn't notice the camera at all,
and that's fine. It was a great family photo nonetheless.
And he loved the trail. I thought it was the
perfect length for him and nice and flat and just
I was so happy and I loved doing that all together.
(46:47):
What about you? What was your favorite part? I know
this is weird, but like honestly finding out about elish shrimp,
that's not I mean, it is weird, but like learning
about the ecology and the wildlife he um, even the
differences between the like track lazines versus tracle files versus
like tracle bytes, like you know, that was really interesting
(47:11):
to understand. Yeah, the cave ecosystem is really deep, like
also literally deep. There animals living underground here deep underground
there really are And considering like all of our talk
about like mummies and eyelash shrimp. Uh, and you're afraid
of the dark. I think we should finish this episode
with a little horror story. Yeah, I know, because of Unsurprisingly,
(47:33):
Mammoth Cave is a park that has triggered the obsession
from HP Lovecraft himself, one of the foremost authorities on
horror and creepy fiction. He actually wrote a short story
that's set in Mammoth Cave, because of course he did.
When this place just is made for stuff like that.
It's called the Beast in the Cave, and it's the
kind of thing that nightmares are literally made of. Yeah,
(47:56):
and honest, it sounds like the plot of the movie
The Descent, which I have seen, but I've heard a
lot about, and I've read the Wikipedia page in detail
because that's what I do. I can't see horror movies
because I get traumatized too severely, but I love to
read Wikipedia pages and like experience the horror that way.
So here's a little teaser from that story. Yeah, it's
(48:17):
about a man touring Mammoth Cave who gets separated from
his group somehow, and he gets lost his torch eventually
goes out, leaving him in pitch dark. Yes, this is horrifying,
literally horrifying. He hears footsteps approaching, but they don't sound human,
so he throws a stone into the darkness. Towards the sound,
(48:37):
curious to hear what happens next. But I guess you
have to read the short story for yourself, right or
you could just be like me and not read that
story and watch a romantic comedy to erase this for
my memory. Already Player one, just go go watch Ready
with One. But really, though, like h. P. Lovecraft really
just gets it. I mean, Mammoth Cave is the most
(49:00):
hauntingly beautiful place you've been listening to. Park Landia, a
show about National Parks Parklandids the production of My Heart Radio,
created by Matt Carouac, Brad Caro Wac and Christopher has
The otis produced and edited by Mike John's. Our executive
producer is Christopher hasiotis our researcher's Jocelyn Shields. A special
(49:21):
things goes out to Gabrielle Collins, Christal Waters and the
rest of the Parklandia crew. And Hey listeners, if you're
enjoying the show, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.
It helps other people like you find our show. You
can keep up with us on social media as well.
Check out our photos from our travels on Instagram at
Parklandia pod and join in on the conversation in our
Facebook group Parklandia Rangers. From our podcast My Heart Radio,
(49:44):
visit the heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows, and as always, thank you
for listening.
Parklandia News
Hosts And Creators
Brad Kirouac
Matt Kirouac
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.